Longitudinal Single-Spin Asymmetries in Proton-Proton Scattering with a Hadronic Final State

Abstract

We consider longitudinal, parity-violating single-spin asymmetries in proton-proton collisions at RHIC. The focus of this study is on the production of single-inclusive jets, as well as on jets that contain a charm quark. While the asymmetry for inclusive jets turns out to be small, we find considerably larger effects for the case of charm production. We also investigate the role of leading threshold logarithms and find that they increase the polarized and unpolarized cross sections and reduce the spin asymmetry.