This study deals with the theory and phenomenology of transverse spin effects in high-energy hadronic physics. Contrary to common past belief, it is now rather clear that these effects are far from irrelevant. A decade or so of intense theoretical work has shed much light on the subject and brought to the surface an entire class of new phenomena, which now await thorough experimental investigation. Over the next few years a number of experiments worldwide (at DESY, CERN and Brookhaven) will run with transversely polarised particles, providing data that will enrich our knowledge of the transverse spin structure of hadrons. The principle aim of this work is to assess the state of the art as it stands in 2002. After a few introductory remarks (Chapter 1), in the first part (Chapters 2-4) attention is directed to polarised deep inelastic scattering (DIS), particularly DIS on transversely polarised targets, which probes the transverse spin structure function g2. This structure function is examined within the framework of the quark-parton model and its improvement via perturbative QCD. The existing data are reviewed and commented on (for completeness and comparison, a brief presentation of longitudinally polarised DIS and of the helicity structure of the proton is provided). The second part of the book (Chapters 5-8) focuses on the transverse polarisation of quarks, the so-called "transversity". The partonic content and the QCD evolution of the transversity distributions are presented in detail. The phenomenology of transversity is then studied in the context of Drell-Yan processes and of semi-inclusive lepto- and hadroproduction. The interpretation of data on single-spin asymmetries is discussed and, finally, the prospects for future measurements are reviewed.
The notion of transversity in hadronic physics has been with us for over 25 years. Intriguing though it might have been, for much of that time transversity remained an intangible and remote object, of interest principally to a few theoreticians. In recent years transversity and transverse-spin effects in general have grown as both theoretical and experimental areas of active research. This increasing attention has now matured into a thriving field with a driving force of its own. The ever-growing bulk of data on asymmetries in collisions involving transversely polarised hadrons demands a more solid and coherent theoretical basis for its description. Indeed, it now appears rather clear that transversity and other closely related properties play a significant role in such phenomena.As part of a Ministry-funded inter-university Research Project, this workshop was organised to gather together experimentalists and theoreticians engaged in investigating the nature of transverse spin in hadronic physics, with the intent of favouring the exchange of up-to-date theoretical and experimental ideas and news on the subject. Over 70 physicists took part and very nearly all the major experiments involved in transverse-spin studies were officially represented, as too were the main theory groups working in the field. New results and new analyses sparked many interesting and lively discussions.
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