Left-right spin asymmetry in $\ell N^\uparrow \to h X$

Abstract

We consider the inclusive production of hadrons in lepton-nucleon scattering. For a transversely polarized nucleon this reaction shows a left-right azimuthal asymmetry, which we compute in twist-3 collinear factorization at leading order in perturbation theory. All non-perturbative parton correlators of the calculation are fixed through information from other hard processes. Our results for the left-right asymmetry agree in sign with recent data for charged pion production from the HERMES Collaboration and from Jefferson Lab. However, the magnitude of the computed asymmetries tends to be larger than the data. Potential reasons for this outcome are identified. We also give predictions for future experiments and highlight in particular the unique opportunities at an Electron Ion Collider.