$\Delta G(x,\mu^2)$ from jet and prompt photon production at RHIC

Abstract

We compare theoretical results for jet and prompt photon production in polarized pp-collisions at RHIC obained with three different methods: a) the unpolarized event generator PYTHIA combined with hadronic asymmetry weights calculated from leading order formulae, b) the polarized event generator SPHINX which treats the partonic helicity in the hard scattering and the initial state shower explicitly, and c) parton generators which integrate next-to-leading order QCD cross sections using Monte Carlo methods. Method a) requires far less computer time than method b) but we find that it is too imprecise for precision studies. The lacking treatment of partonic polarization in the initial state shower results in relative deviations in the asymmetries of up to 20% relative to SPHINX (method b)). As was to be expected, the event generator predictions for the absolute cross sections differ significantly from the next-to-leading order QCD calculations. But fortunately the asymmetries show a much better agreement: relative deviations for prompt photon production for parameterizations with medium and large $\Delta g(x,\mu^2)$ barely exceed 10%. After fine tuning the parameters of the parton showers the same result can be obtained for jet production.