Longitudinal Double-Spin Asymmetries for Dijet Production at Intermediate Pseudorapidity in Polarized $pp$ Collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV

Abstract

One of the primary goals of the RHIC spin program is to determine the spin-dependent gluon distribution, $\Delta g(x)$, of the proton. The measurements of the 2009 longitudinal double-helicity asymmetry, $A_{LL}$, for mid-rapidity inclusive jet and $\pi^{0}$ production place strong constraints on $\Delta g(x)$ and, for the first time, find evidence for non-zero gluon polarization values for partonic momentum fraction $x$ greater than 0.05. In contrast to inclusive jets, dijet correlation measurements provide access to partonic kinematics at leading order, and thus give better constraints on the behavior of $\Delta g(x)$ as a function of gluon momentum fraction. Furthermore, dijet measurements at higher rapidity probe the lower $x$ values where $\Delta G$ is poorly constrained.\\ In these proceedings, we present the first measurement of $A_{LL}$ for dijets with at least one jet reconstructed within the pseudorapidity range 0.8 $< \eta <$ 1.8 at STAR. The dijets were measured in polarized proton+proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV. Values of $A_{LL}$ are determined for several distinct event topologies, defined by the jet pseudorapidities, and span a range of parton momentum fraction $x$ down to $x \sim 0.01$. The measured asymmetries are found to be consistent with the predictions of global analyses that incorporate the results of previous RHIC measurements. They will provide new constraints on $\Delta g(x)$ in this poorly constrained region when included in future global analyses.