1. Longitudinal Spin Asymmetry and Cross Section of Inclusive  0 Production in Polarized p+p Collisions at 200 GeV Outline  Introduction  Experimental Overview  Inclusive Cross Section  Neutral Pions in Jets  Longitudinal Spin Asymmetry Frank Simon, MIT, for the STAR Collaboration

2. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 2 10/03/2006 Introduction  Polarized p+p collisions provide sensitivity to gluon polarization in the nucleon  With current statistics the focus is on inclusive measurements (Jets, Pions)  large contribution of gg and qg processes to overall cross section => good tool to study gluon polarization, but no constraint of event kinematics  Neutral pions probe the same processes as jets, but with different experimental systematics and effects from fragmentation relative contributions of subprocesses to inclusive  0 production W. Vogelsang  Unpolarized measurements of inclusive  0 are of considerable interest:  study fragmentation functions via NLO pQCD vs measured cross section comparisons: currently large uncertainty in gluon FF  study fragmentation directly: electromagnetic trigger selects jets with leading  0 ggqgqq

3. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 3 10/03/2006 The STAR Experiment Magnet  0.5 T Solenoid Triggering & Luminosity Monitor  Beam-Beam Counters  3.4 < |  | < 5.0 Central Tracking  Large-volume TPC  |  | < 1.5 Calorimetry  Barrel EMC (Pb/Scintilator)  |  | < 1.0  Shower-Maximum Detector …and many other systems not used in the  0 analysis Used Triggers:  Minimum Bias (MB): BBC Coincidence, highly prescaled  High Tower 1 & 2 (HT1 / HT2): MB + one BEMC cell (  x  = 0.05 x 0.05) above threshold (lower threshold trigger prescaled) 2005 run

4. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 4 10/03/2006 Neutral Pion Reconstruction  2005 p+p dataset (after rigorous quality cuts): ~ 1.7 pb -1  Trigger & shower maximum detector in 2005 operational only for 0 <  < 1, full acceptance -1 <  < 1 available for 2006 data tower size (  x  )0.05 x 0.05  0 invariant mass: SMD becomes crucial for  0 reconstruction for p t ~ 5 GeV/c (photon separation equal to tower size) veto calorimeter hits that have a charged track leading to them    0 candidates accepted for 0.1 < y < 0.9   0 has to be able to fire the trigger (but does not have to be the triggering particle)  rejection of beam background found with pattern recognition code

5. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 5 10/03/2006 Neutral Pion Reconstruction   invariant mass spectrum near  0 mass described by:  MC  0 line shape  low invariant mass background (caused by cluster splitting in the SMD)  combinatoric background & residual fit  Correction factor for cross section determination obtained from PYTHIA & HERWIG simulations different cuts used for MB and HT triggers HT1 HT2

6. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 6 10/03/2006 Inclusive Cross Section  L sampled : 0.4 pb -1 (HT triggers), 44  b -1 (MB)  Point-to-point systematics from yield extraction  Total systematics dominated by 5% uncertainty in BEMC energy scale, significant contribution from correction factor uncertainty  Compared to NLO pQCD (CTEQ6M pdfs) using KKP and Kretzer fragmentation func.  better agreement with KKP  large scale uncertainties in pQCD calculations, indicated by choosing different scales for KKP calculations Invariant cross section: consistent with previous results from PHENIX

7. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 7 10/03/2006 Neutral Pions in Jets  STAR is capable of full Jet reconstruction  reconstructed   are associated with Jets (HT triggered) if the  0 lies within the Jet cone (0.4 in ,  )   0 direction is strongly correlated with the Jet axis:  leading  0 typically within 5° of the Jet axis  defined as the mean ratio of  0 p t to Jet p t  Affected by trigger, depends on p t evolution of cross section and z dependence of the fragmentation function RMS in ,  ~ 0.055

8. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 8 10/03/2006 Double Longitudinal Asymmetry: Overview Ingredients:  Polarization: measured by RHIC polarimeters  Relative Luminosity R measured with the STAR BBC & scaler system (relative luminosities for each bunch crossing available)  Spin dependent yields N ++, N +- :  determined from integration of  invariant mass in the signal region after background subtraction  Spin direction in the interaction region verified by the STAR BBCs, FOM ~

9. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 9 10/03/2006 Double Longitudinal Asymmetry A LL constant fit (assumes no p t dependence):  ALL = -0.017 +- 0.021   compared to NLO calculations (ignoring systematic errors):  GRSV Std: 3  GRSV Max: 10  GRSV Min: 3  GRSV Zero: 2  GRSV max scenario disfavored overall scale uncertainty from beam polarization measurement not included

10. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 10 10/03/2006 A LL Systematic Studies & Errors  Parity-Violating Single Spin Asymmetries  Come in through the weak interaction, and are limited to less than 10 -4, so they should be consisten t with zero at the present level of statistics  Good tool to investigate possible spin dependent background effects or issues with relative luminosities  For  0 all observed single spin asymmetries are within 1  of 0, no systematic assigned  Random Pattern Analysis  Asymmetries calculated with randomized bunch patterns  no indication of non-statistical effects found  Systematic Errors assigned for  remaining Background (from beam background, not removed invariant mass background) p t dependent from 5 x 10 -3 to 11 x 10 -3  yield extraction (normalization of background model) from 3 x 10 -3 to 7 x 10 -3  non-longitudinal spin components in beams 3 x 10 -3  relative luminosities 2 x 10 -3

11. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 11 10/03/2006 Comparisons to Published Results  Comparison with published results:  STAR 2003/2004 Jets, p t divided by 2  PHENIX 2003/2004  0

12. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 12 10/03/2006 Projections for 2006 Data  Significant increase in sampled luminosity  Polarization typically ~60%  acceptance increase by a factor of 2 significant increase in figure of merit! 

13. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 13 10/03/2006 Summary  First spin result for inclusive  0 production at mid-rapidity from STAR  Inclusive cross section consistent with NLO pQCD calculations  KKP fragmentation functions favored over Kretzer set  scale uncertainty of pQCD of comparable size as preliminary systematics  Energetic  0 carry a significant fraction of the total transverse momentum of their associated jet  Double longitudinal spin asymmetry disfavors large positive gluon polarization  consistent with previous observations with jets and  0  result limited by statistics  Significant increase in figure of merit with the already recorded 2006 data set

14. Backup

15. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 15 10/03/2006 Backup: Systematics: Cross Section  Point-to-Point (yield extraction, background subtraction)  Energy scale (5% uncertainty on BSMD gain calibration)  Correction factor (variation of cuts, uncertainty in SMD gain (to a large extend built into MC, additional uncertainties included in systematics), statistical limitation of MC dataset)  Acceptance Stability (changes in electronics status, modeling in MC)

16. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 16 10/03/2006 Backup: Systematic Errors on A LL Binremaining Background Yield Extrationrelative Luminosity non-long. Effects Total Systematic stat. Error 10.00520.00620.00220.0030.00890.0443 20.00520.00320.00220.0030.00720.0291 30.00820.00470.00220.0030.01020.0439 40.01120.00690.00220.0030.01370.0836

17. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 17 10/03/2006 Backup: BEMC  0 Acceptance  Photon Candidates (Calorimeter Hits) above 1 GeV requiring information from both SMD planes: Data vs MC Data (all triggers) PYTHIA (no trigger selection)  Data histogram integrates over a running time of 12 days, MC takes the detector status at one specific time within that period  Overall good agreement, detector acceptance reasonably modeled in MC

18. Frank Simon: Inclusive  0  and A LL in p+p at 200 GeV 18 10/03/2006 Backup: BEMC  0 Data/MC Comparison HT1 triggers 4.5 GeV/c <  0 p t < 4.6 GeV/c black: data red: Pythia HT2 triggers 7.0 GeV/c <  0 p t < 7.2 GeV/c black: data red: Pythia  Preliminary! Limited MC Statistics!   0 properties well reproduced in MC for different p t and triggers