Trigluon correlations and single transverse spin asymmetry in open charm production

Abstract

We study the single transverse-spin asymmetry for open charm production in the semi-inclusive lepton-hadron deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS) and $pp$ collision. Within collinear factorization approach, we find that the asymmetry is sensitive to the twist-3 trigluon correlation functions in the proton. With a simple model for the trigluon correlation functions, we estimate the asymmetry in SIDIS for both COMPASS and eRHIC kinematics, as well as in $pp$ collision at RHIC energy. We discuss the possibilities of extracting the trigluon correlation functions in these experiments.