Gluonic Pole Cross Sections and Single Spin Asymmetries in Hadron-Hadron Scattering

Abstract

The gauge-links connecting the parton field operators in the hadronic matrix elements appearing in the transverse momentum dependent distribution functions give rise to T-odd effects. Due to the process-dependence of the gauge-links the T-odd distribution functions appear with different pre-factors. A consequence is that in the description of single spin asymmetries the parton distribution and fragmentation functions are convoluted with gluonic pole cross sections rather than the basic partonic cross sections. In this paper we calculate the gluonic pole cross sections encountered in single spin asymmetries in hadron-hadron scattering. The case of back-to-back pion production in polarized proton-proton scattering is worked out explicitly. It is shown how T-odd gluon distribution functions originating from gluonic pole matrix elements appear in twofold.