Testing various polarized parton distributions at RHIC

Abstract

A very promising spin physics programme will be soon on the way at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). By studying the spin asymmetries for various processes (single photon, single-jet and $W^{\pm}$ production), we will compare the different predictions obtained using some sets of polarized parton distributions, available in the recent literature. We will put some emphasize on the analysis of the anticipated errors, given the event rates expected from this high luminosity new machine and the current acceptance for the detector systems at RHIC.