Intrinsic transverse momentum and transverse spin asymmetries

Abstract

We investigate leading twist transverse momentum dependent origins of transverse spin asymmetries in hadron-hadron collisions. The chiral-odd T-odd distribution function with intrinsic transverse momentum dependence, which would signal an intrinsic handedness of quarks inside a hadron, could account for single spin asymmetries and at the same time for the large cos(2 phi) asymmetry in the unpolarized Drell-Yan cross section, which still lacks understanding. We show explicitly how it would relate unpolarized and polarized observables measurable with proton-proton collisions at RHIC. It would offer a new possibility to access the transversity distribution function.