Azimuthal asymmetries in semi-inclusive DIS with polarized beam and/or target and their nuclear dependences

Abstract

Using the formalism obtained from collinear expansion, we calculate the differential cross section and azimuthal asymmetries in semi-inclusive deeply inelastic lepton-nucleon (nucleus) scattering process $e^-+N (A) \to e^-+q+X$ with both polarized beam and polarized target up to twist-3. We derive the azimuthal asymmetries in terms of twist-3 parton correlation functions. We simplify the results by using the QCD equation of motion that leads to a set of relationships between different twist-3 functions. We further study the nuclear dependence of azimuthal asymmetries and show that they have similar suppression factors as those in the unpolarized reactions.