Nucleon Transversity and Hyperon Polarization

Abstract

We calculate the transverse polarizations of the produced hyperons in the semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering of unpolarized lepton beam on transversely polarized nucleon, since these polarizations provide a potential method for extracting the transversity distribution h1(x) of the nucleon. In this calculation we use the SU(6) wavefunctions of the octet baryons and the spectator model for the distribution functions of nucleons and the fragmentation functions of hyperons. We find that that H1(z) of the Sigma hyperons are much larger than that of the Lambda hyperon. Therefore, when one tries to extract the transversity distribution h1(x) from the hyperon polarizations, measuring the polarizations of the Sigma hyperons is more efficient than Lambda.