Single spin asymmetries in the Drell-Yan process

Abstract

We discuss single transverse spin asymmetries in the Drell-Yan process originating from so-called gluonic poles in twist-three hadronic matrix elements, as first considered by Qiu and Sterman. Even though time-reversal invariance is not broken, the effects of such poles cannot be distinguished from those of time-reversal odd distribution functions. We show the connection between gluonic poles and large distance gluon fields, in particular we focus on boundary conditions. We identify the possible single spin asymmetries in the Drell-Yan process.