Download or read book Longitudinal Double-spin Asymmetry and Cross Section for Inclusive Neutral Pion Production in Polarized Proton Collisions at [the Square Root of Sigma] written by Alan Michael Hoffman and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty years of polarized lepton-nucleon scattering experiments have found that the contribution from quark spins (1/2[delta] [sigma]) to the spin of the proton is only ~ 35%. This has lead researchers to look elsewhere, specifically to gluon spin ([delta sigma]) for a large contribution to proton spin. [delta sigma] has been only loosely constrained in polarized DIS and SIDIS experiments. Polarized proton-proton collisions at RHIC provide sensitivity to [delta sigma] through measurements of the longitudinal double-spin asymmetry, ALL. This work presents a measurement of ALL for inclusive 7ro production in polarized proton-proton collisions using the STAR detector and data from RHIC Run 6. 7r0s are abundantly produced at mid-rapidity in proton-proton collisions, making them natural candidates for studies of [delta] [sigma]. Novel techniques for reconstructing 7ros at STAR are discussed, and a measurement of the unpolarized cross section presented. Finally, the measured ALL is compared to perturbative QCD predictions and from this comparison constraints are placed on [delta] [sigma].