Exploring the gluon Sivers function in photon + jet production

Abstract

We study transverse single spin asymmetries (TSSAs) in back-to-back photon plus jet production in the scattering of unpolarized beams of protons off a transversely polarized proton target as probes of Gluon Sivers Function (GSF). We provide estimates within the region where the imbalance $\vec{q}_{\perp} \equiv \vec{p}_{\gamma\perp} + \vec{p}_{J\perp}$ between the transverse momenta of the photon and the jet is much smaller than the average of the transverse momenta $\vec{p}_{\perp} \equiv \lvert \vec{p}_{\gamma\perp} - \vec{p}_{J\perp} \rvert / 2$ i.e. the back-to-back region. The presence of these two scales in the process makes it particularly suitable for applying transverse momentum dependent (TMD) factorization, in contrast to single-scale processes that rely on the generalized parton model approach. We present our preliminary results of the transverse single spin asymmetry for this process at $\sqrt{s} $ = 200 GeV.