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The global spin alignment of vector mesons has been observed by the STAR collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). It provides a unique opportunity to probe the correlation between the polarized quark and antiquark in the strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma (sQGP) produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions, opening a new window to explore the properties of sQGP. In addition, spin alignments of vector mesons have also been observed in other high-energy particle collisions such as $e^+e^-$ annihilations at high energies where hadron production is dominated by quark fragmentation mechanism. The results obtained are quite different from those obtained in heavy ion collisions where quark coalescence/combination mechanism dominates suggesting strong dependence on hadronization mechanisms. So comprehensive studies in different hadronization processes are needed. In this article, we present a brief review of theoretical and experimental advances in the study of vector meson's spin alignments in a variety of high-energy particle collisions, with emphasis on hadronization mechanisms., Comment: ReVTex 4.1, 15 pages, 7 figures, minor corrections, to appear in Science China (Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy)

We study the global polarization of spin-$3/2$ hadrons in relativistic heavy ion collisions. We show in particular that the global tensor polarizations of rank two or three for spin-$3/2$ hadrons are sensitive to the local two or three quark spin correlations respectively in the quark gluon plasma produced in the collision processes. We present the relationships between these measurable tensor polarizations and quark spin correlations in the quark matter system., Comment: 11 pages

We investigate the production of spin-3/2 hadrons in semi-inclusive deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scatterings. The complete differential cross section is derived through the kinematic analysis and expressed in terms of 288 structure functions, corresponding to all polarization configurations and azimuthal modulations. For an unpolarized lepton beam, half of the 192 structure functions have nonzero leading order contributions in the parton model, among which 42 are from rank-3 tensor polarized fragmentation functions of the hadron. For a polarized lepton beam, one third of the 96 structure functions contribute at the leading order and 14 of them are from rank-3 tensor polarized fragmentation functions. In addition to the formalism, we perform a model estimation of the spin transfer to a $S_{hLLL}$ polarized hadron and sizable asymmetry is expected. Therefore, these newly defined observables for the production of a spin-3/2 hadron in a deep inelastic scattering process can be explored in future experiments to understand nucleon spin structures and spin-dependent fragmentation functions., Comment: 48 pages, 3 figures

A perspective for the Global spin alignment of vector mesons and strong force fields in heavy-ion collisions is provided in this short report., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures

Using a quark combination model with the equal-velocity combination approximation, we study the production of hadrons with strangeness and charm flavor quantum numbers in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$5.02 TeV. We present analytical expressions and numerical results for these hadrons' transverse momentum spectra and yield ratios. Our numerical results agree well with the experimental data available. The features of strange and charm hadron production in the quark--gluon plasma at the early stage of heavy ion collisions are also discussed., Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures

We investigate the inclusive and semi-inclusive productions of spin-3/2 hadrons, such as $\Omega$, in unpolarized $e^+ e^-$ annihilation. The general differential cross sections are expressed in terms of structure functions in accordance to the polarization of the hadron and the azimuthal modulations. We derive a complete definition of quark transverse momentum dependent (TMD) fragmentation functions (FFs) to spin-3/2 hadrons for the first time from the decomposition of the quark-quark correlation matrix at leading twist, 14 of which are newly defined corresponding to rank-3 tensor polarized hadron. The collinear FFs are obtained from the $k_T$-integrated correlation matrix, and only two TMD FFs with rank-3 tensor polarization have nonvanishing collinear counterparts. Then we perform a leading order calculation of the unpolarized differential cross sections. In the single-hadron inclusive production, only two structure functions are found nonzero and none of the rank-3 tensor polarized FFs contributes. For the nearly back-to-back two-hadron production, half of the 48 structure functions are found nonzero even if the spin of the second hadron is not analyzed, and ten of the rank-3 tensor polarized TMD FFs contribute. Therefore, one can study the rank-3 tensor polarized FFs via the production of a spin-3/2 hadron and an unpolarized hadron in unpolarized $e^+ e^-$ collision experiments. These newly defined FFs can be further applied in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering processes for the study of nucleon structures., Comment: 42 pages, 4 figures, matching the published version in Physical Review D

We propose a relativistic theory for spin density matrices of vector mesons based on Kadanoff-Baym equations in the closed-time-path formalism. The theory puts the calculation of spin observables such as the spin density matrix element $\rho_{00}$ for vector mesons on a solid ground. Within the theory we formulate $\rho_{00}$ for $\phi$ mesons into a factorization form in separation of momentum and space-time variables. We argue that the main contribution to $\rho_{00}$ at lower energies should be from the $\phi$ fields that can polarize the strange quark and antiquark in the same way as electromagnetic fields. The key observation is that there is correlation inside the $\phi$ meson wave function between the $\phi$ field that polarizes the strange quark and that polarizes the strange antiquark. This is reflected by the fact that the contributions to $\rho_{00}$ are all in squares of fields which are nonvanishing even if the fields may strongly fluctuate in space-time. The fluctuation of strong force fields can be extracted from $\rho_{00}$ of quarkonium vector mesons as links to fundamental properties of quantum chromodynamics., Comment: ReVTex 4.1, 25 pages, 2 figures; The derivation of KB equations in Section III has been improved

Polarized quarks and antiquarks in high-energy heavy-ion collisions can lead to the spin alignment of vector mesons formed by quark coalescence. Using the relativistic spin Boltzmann equation for vector mesons derived from Kadanoff-Baym equations with an effective quark-meson model for strong interaction and quark coalescence model for hadronizaton, we calculate the spin density matrix element $\rho_{00}$ for $\phi$ mesons and show that anisotropies of local field correlations or fluctuations with respect to the spin quantization direction lead to $\phi$ meson's spin alignment. We propose that the local correlation or fluctuation of $\phi$ fields is the dominant mechanism for the observed the $\phi$ meson's spin alignment and its strength can be extracted from experimental data as functions of collision energies. The calculated transverse momentum dependence of $\rho_{00}$ agrees with STAR's data. We further predict the azimuthal angle dependence of $\rho_{00}$ which can be tested in future experiments., Comment: ReVTex 4.1, 14 pages, 4 figures. A large part of the paper has been rewritten with the focus on extracting local correlations or fluctuations of phi fields from STAR's data and predictions for dependences of $\rho_{00}$ on the transverse momentum and azimuthal angle

The fluid in global equilibrium must fulfill some constraints. These constraints can be derived from quantum statistical theory or kinetic theory. In this paper we will show that how these constraints can be applied to determine the non-dissipative transport coefficients for chiral systems along with the energy-momentum conservation, chiral anomaly for charge current and trace anomaly in energy-momentum tensor., Comment: 9 pages, no figures, submitted to Symmetry for the special issue "Symmetry with Chiral Magnetic Effects and Chiral Transports"

In non-central high energy heavy ion collisions, the colliding system possesses a huge orbital angular momentum along the normal direction of the reaction plane. Due to the spin orbit interaction in the system, such a huge orbital angular momentum leads to the spin polarization of quarks and anti-quarks in the quark matter system produced in the collision. Such an effect, known as the global polarization effect, was predicted many years ago and has been confirmed by the STAR collaboration at RHIC. The discovery of the global polarization effect opens a new avenue in heavy ion physics in general and in studying the properties of quark-gluon plasma in particular. This talk will briefly review the original ideas and calculations that lead to the prediction and summarize progresses and problems in related aspects., Comment: plenary talk at the 24th International Spin Symposium (SPIN2021)

We make a systematic study of $\Lambda$ hyperon polarizations in unpolarized lepton induced semi-inclusive reactions such as $e^-N\to e^-\Lambda X$ and $e^+e^-\to\Lambda h X$. We present the general form of cross sections in terms of structure functions obtained from a general kinematic analysis. This already shows that the produced hyperons can be polarized in three orthogonal directions, i.e., the longitudinal direction along the hyperon momentum, the normal direction of the production plane, and the transverse direction in the production plane. We present the parton model results at the leading twist and leading order in perturbative QCD and provide the expressions for these structure functions and polarizations in terms of parton distribution functions and fragmentation functions. We emphasize in particular that by studying the longitudinal polarization and the transverse polarization in the production plane, we can extract the corresponding chiral-odd fragmentation functions $H_{1Lq}^{\perp\Lambda}$, $H_{1Tq}^{\Lambda}$ and $H_{1Tq}^{\perp\Lambda}$. We also present numerical results of rough estimates utilizing available parameterizations of fragmentation functions and approximations. We discuss how to measure these polarizations and point out in particular that they can be carried out in future EIC and/or $e^+e^-$ annihilation experiments such as Belle., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures; to be published on PRD

We make a systematic study of the isospin symmetry of fragmentation functions by taking decay contributions into account. We assume the isospin symmetry in strong interactions and show that in the unpolarized case the isospin symmetry is held for fragmentation functions of $\Lambda$ and only tiny violations are allowed for other hadrons such as nucleon and pions due to the contributions from weak decays. We present a rough estimate of the magnitudes of such violations. In the polarized case, we show that the isospin symmetry violation for $\Lambda$ production should be tiny and the recent Belle data on the transverse polarization of $\Lambda$ can be reproduced if the isospin symmetry is kept in the corresponding polarized fragmentation functions., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

We give a brief overview of the kinetic theory for spin-1/2 fermions in Wigner function formulism. The chiral and spin kinetic equations can be derived from equations for Wigner functions. A general Wigner function has 16 components which satisfy 32 coupled equations. For massless fermions, the number of independent equations can be significantly reduced due to the decoupling of left-handed and right-handed particles. It can be proved that out of many components of Wigner functions and their coupled equations, only one kinetic equation for the distribution function is independent. This is called the disentanglement theorem for Wigner functions of chiral fermions. For massive fermions, it turns out that one particle distribution function and three spin distribution functions are independent and satisfy four kinetic equations. Various chiral and spin effects such as chiral magnetic and votical effects, the chiral seperation effect, spin polarization effects can be consistently described in the formalism., Comment: 32pages, no figures, published version in IJMPA, more references are added

In non-central high energy heavy ion collisions the colliding system posses a huge orbital angular momentum in the direction opposite to the normal of the reaction plane. Due to the spin-orbit coupling in strong interaction, such huge orbital angular momentum leads to the polarization of quarks and anti-quarks in the same direction. This effect, known as the global polarization effect, has been recently observed by STAR Collaboration at RHIC that confirms the theoretical prediction made more than ten years ago. The discovery has attracted much attention on the study of spin effects in heavy ion collision. It opens a new window to study properties of QGP and a new direction in high energy heavy ion physics -- Spin Physics in Heavy Ion Collisions. In this chapter, we review the original ideas and calculations that lead to the predictions. We emphasize the role played by spin-orbit coupling in high energy spin physics and discuss the new opportunities and challenges in this connection., Comment: prepared for "Lecture Notes in Physics", to appear

We solve the Wigner equation for massless spin-1/2 charged fermions near global equilibrium. The Wigner function can be obtained order by order in the power expansion of the vorticity and electromagnetic field. The Wigner function has been derived up to the second order from which the non-dissipative charge currents and the stress tensor can be obtained. The charge and energy densities and the pressure have contributions from the vorticity and electromagnetic field at the second order. The vector and axial Hall currents can be induced along the direction orthogonal to the vorticity and electromagnetic field at the second order. We also find that the trace anomaly emerges natually in renormalizing the stress tensor by including the quantum correction from the electromagnetic field., Comment: 31 pages, no figures, accepted version, general solution derived, more detail and more references added

The spin alignment of vector meson produced in high energy reactions is determined by the spin-dependent fragmentation function $D_{1LL} (z,\mu_f)$ that is shown to be independent of the polarization of the fragmenting quark. In this paper, we extract the spin-dependent fragmentation function $D_{1LL} (z,\mu_f)$ from data on the spin alignment of $K^{*0}$ in $e^+e^-$ annihilation at LEP in two different scenarios and apply them to make predictions in $pp$ collisions. We make detailed analysis of contributions from different sub-processes and show that the spin alignment should be quite significant also in high energy $pp$ collisions., Comment: 12 pages, 16 fgiures,version printed in PRD

We use a geometric model for the hadron polarization with an emphasis on the rapidity dependence. It is based on the model of Brodsky, Gunion, and Kuhn and that of the Bjorken scaling. We make predictions for the rapidity dependence of the hadron polarization in the collision energy range 7.7-200 GeV by taking a few assumed forms of the parameters. The predictions can be tested by future experiments., Comment: RevTex 4, 16 pages, 11 figures

This is prepared for a featured article in Nuclear Physics News. Recently, the global polarization of \Lambda and \bar{\Lambda} hyperons in heavy-ion collisions (HIC) has been observed by the STAR Collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in Brookhaven National Laboratory. The discovery confirms the theoretical prediction made more than ten years ago and indicates that the quark gluon plasma (QGP) produced in HIC possesses a vorticity as high as 10^21s^-1, much higher than any other fluid observed in nature. This opens a new window to study properties of QGP and a new direction in high energy heavy ion physics. This featured article is aimed to report the basic idea, current status and outlook., Comment: 4 pages, 11 figures, to appear in Nuclear Physics News

We show that the experimental data of transverse momentum ($p_{T}$) spectra of $\Omega$ baryon and $\phi$ meson at mid-rapidity in heavy-ion collisions exhibit the constituent quark number scaling in a wide energy range from RHIC to LHC. Such a scaling behavior is a direct consequence of quark combination mechanism via equal velocity combination and provides a very convenient way to extract the $p_{T}$ spectrum of strange quarks at hadronization. We present the results of strange quarks obtained from the available data and study the properties in particular the energy dependence of the averaged transverse momentum $\langle p_{T}\rangle$ and the transverse radial flow velocity $\langle\beta\rangle$ with a hydrodynamics-motivated blast-wave model., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

Recent data on the production of $D$ mesons and $\Lambda_c^+$ baryons in heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider exhibit a number of striking characteristics such as enhanced yield ratios $D_s^+/D^0$, $\Lambda_c^+/D^0$ and their transverse momentum dependences. In this paper, we derive the momentum dependence of open charm mesons and singly charmed baryons produced in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions via the equal-velocity quark combination. We present analytic expressions and numerical results of yield ratios and compare them with the experimental data available. We make predictions for other charmed hadrons., Comment: 2 tables, 8 figures

We revisit the chiral anomaly in the quantum kinetic theory in the Wigner function formalism under the background field approximation. Our results show that the chiral anomaly is actually from the Dirac sea or the vacuum contribution in the un-normal-ordered Wigner function. We also demonstrate that this contribution modifies the chiral kinetic equation for antiparticles., Comment: 7 pages, Version submitted to PRD

We present a new method of solving the probability distribution for baryons, antibaryons and mesons at the hadronization of constituent quark and antiquark system. The hadronization is governed by the quark combination rule in the quark combination model developed by the Shandong Group. We use the method of the generating function to derive the outcome of the quark combination rule, which is much simpler and easier to be generalized than the original method. Furthermore, we use the formula of the quark combination rule and its generalization to study the property of multiplicity distribution of net-protons. Taking a naive case of quark number fluctuations and correlations at hadronization, we calculate ratios of multiplicity cumulants of final-state net-protons and discuss the potential applicability of quark combination model in studying hadronic multiplicity fluctuations and the underlying phase transition property in relativistic heavy-ion collisions., Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures. To be published in Chinese Physics C

We present the complete first order relativistic quantum kinetic theory with spin for massive fermions derived from the Wigner function formalism in a concise form that shows explicitly how the 32 Wigner equations reduce to 4 independent transport equations. We solve modified on-shell conditions to obtain the general solution and present the corresponding transport equations in three different forms that are suitable for different purposes. We demonstrate how different spin effects arise from the kinetic theory by calculating the chiral separation effect with mass correction, the chiral anomaly from the axial current and the quantum magnetic moment density induced by vorticity and magnetic field. We also show how to generate the global polarization effect due to spin vorticity coupling. The formalism presented may serve as a practical theoretical framework to study different spin effects in relativistic fermion systems encountered in different areas such as heavy ion, astro-particle and condensed matter physics as well., Comment: 5 pages, Typos fixed and references updated

We develop a general formalism for the quantum kinetics of chiral fermions in a background electromagnetic field based on a semiclassical expansion of covariant Wigner functions in the Planck constant $\hbar$. We demonstrate to any order of $\hbar$ that only the time-component of the Wigner function is independent while other components are explicit derivative. We further demonstrate to any order of $\hbar$ that a system of quantum kinetic equations for multiple-components of Wigner functions can be reduced to one chiral kinetic equation involving only the single-component distribution function. These are remarkable properties of the quantum kinetics of chiral fermions and will significantly simplify the description and simulation of chiral effects in heavy ion collisions and Dirac/Weyl semimetals. We present the unintegrated chiral kinetic equations in four-momenta up to $O(\hbar ^2)$ and the integrated ones in three-momenta up to $O(\hbar)$. We find that some singular terms emerge in the integration over the time component of the four-momentum, which result in a new source term contributing to the chiral anomaly, in contrast to the well-known scenario of the Berry phase term. Finally we rewrite our results in any Lorentz frame with a reference four-velocity and show how the non-trivial transformation of the distribution function in different frames emerges in a natural way., Comment: RevTex 4, 14 pages, no figure. Section II and III have been re-organized and expended to three sections (II-IV) to include more details of calculations. Section V has been expanded to include more discussions. A new section (VI) is added about Wigner functions in a general Lorentz frame. Some references are added

We propose alternative methods to measure the global polarization of $\Lambda$ hyperons. These methods involve event averages of proton's and $\Lambda$'s momenta in the lab frame. We carry out simulations using these methods and show that all of them work equivalently well in obtaining the global polarization of $\Lambda$ hyperons., Comment: Revtex 4, 7 pages, 2 figures; To be published in Chinese Physics C

We show that the experimental data of $p_T$ spectra of identified hadrons released recently by ALICE collaboration for $p$-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=5.02$ TeV exhibit a distinct universal behavior --- the quark number scaling. We further show that the scaling is a direct consequence of quark (re-)combination mechanism of hadronization and can be regarded as a strong indication of the existence of the underlying source with constituent quark degree of freedom for the production of hadrons in $p$-Pb collisions at such high energies. We make also predictions for production of other hadrons., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

We present the complete twist-4 results for the semi-inclusive annihilation process $e^+ +e^- \to h+ \bar q+X$ at the tree level of perturbative quantum chromodynamics. The calculations are carried out by using the formalism obtained by applying the collinear expansion to this process where the multiple gluon scattering is taken into account and gauge links are obtained systematically and automatically. We present the results for structure functions in terms of gauge invariant fragmentation functions up to twist-4 and the corresponding results for the azimuthal asymmetries and polarizations of hadrons produced. The results obtained show in particular that similar to that for semi-inclusive deeply inelastic scattering, for structure functions associated with sine or cosine of odd number of azimuthal angle(s), there are only twist-3 contributions, while for those of even number of azimuthal angle(s), there are leading twist and twist-4 contributions. For all those structure functions that have leading twist contributions, there are twist-4 addenda to them. Hence twist-4 contributions may even have large influences on extracting leading twist fragmentation functions from the data. We also suggest a method for a rough estimation of twist-4 contributions based on the leading twist fragmentation functions., Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures

We present for the first time the complete twist-4 result for the semi-inclusive deeply inelastic scattering $e^- N \to e^-qX$ with polarized electron and proton beams at the tree level of pQCD. The calculations have been carried out using the formulism obtained after collinear expansion where the multiple gluon scattering are taken into account and gauge links are obtained automatically in a systematical way. The results show in particular that there are twist-4 contributions to all the eight twist-2 structure functions for $e^- N \to e^-hX$ that correspond to the eight twist-2 transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions. Such higher twist effects could be very significant and therefore have important impacts on extracting these three-dimensional parton distribution functions from the asymmetry data on $e^- N \to e^-hX$. We suggest also an approximate way for a rough estimation of such higher twist contributions., Comment: 5 pages

The longitudinal polarization of hyperons in $e^+e^-$ annihilation at high energies depends on the longitudinal polarization of the quark produced at the $e^+e^-$ annihilation vertex whereas the spin alignment of vector mesons is independent of it. They exhibit very different energy dependences. We use the longitudinal polarization of Lambda hyperon and the spin alignment of $K^*$ as examples and present numerical results of energy dependences. We present the results at the leading twist with perturbative QCD evolutions of fragmentation functions at the leading order., Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures

We present the systematic results for three dimensional fragmentation functions of spin one hadrons defined via quark-quark correlator. There are totally 72 such fragmentation functions, among them 18 are twist-2, 36 are twist-3 and 18 are twist-4. We also present the relationships between the twist-3 parts and those defined via quark-gluon-quark correlator obtained from the QCD equation of motion. We show that two particle semi-inclusive hadron production process $e^+e^-\to V\pi X$ at high energies is one of the best places to study the three-dimensional tensor polarization dependent fragmentation functions. We present the general kinematic analysis of this process and show that the cross section should be expressed in terms of 81 independent structure functions. After that we present parton model results for the hadronic tensor, the structure functions, the azimuthal and spin asymmetries in terms of these gauge invariant fragmentation functions at the leading order pQCD up to twist-3., Comment: 30 pages, 3 figures, supersedes 1505.02856

We present a short overview on the studies of transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions of the nucleon. The aim of such studies is to provide a three dimensional imagining of the nucleon and a comprehensive description of semi-inclusive high energy reactions. By comparing with the theoretical framework that we have for the inclusive deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering and the one-dimensional imaging of the nucleon, we summarize what we need to do in order to construct such a comprehensive theoretical framework for semi-inclusive processes in terms of three dimensional gauge invariant parton distributions. After that, we present an overview of what we have already achieved with emphasize on the theoretical framework for semi-inclusive reactions in leading order perturbative QCD but with leading and higher twist contributions. We summarize in particular the results for the differential cross section and the azimuthal spin asymmetries in terms of the gauge invariant transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions. We also briefly summarize the available experimental results on semi-inclusive reactions and parameterizations of transverse momentum dependent parton distributions extracted from them and make an outlook for the future studies., Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures

We present the systematic results for three dimensional fragmentation functions defined via the quark-quark correlator for hadrons with spin 0, 1/2 and 1 respectively. These results are presented in terms of a spin independent part, a vector polarization dependent part and a tensor polarization dependent part. For spin 0 hadrons, only the spin independent part is needed, for spin 1/2 hadron, the polarization independent and vector polarization dependent parts are present, while for spin 1 hadrons, all the three parts exist. We discuss the general properties of these fragmentation functions and also present the corresponding results when transverse momentum is integrated., Comment: 8 pages, 3 tables

This is intend to provide an overview of the theoretical and phenomenological parts of the TMD (Transverse Momentum Dependent parton distribution and fragmentation functions) studies. By comparing with the theoretical framework that we have for the inclusive deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering and the one-dimensional imaging of the nucleon, I try to outline what we need to do in order to construct a comprehensive theoretical framework for semi-inclusive reactions and the three dimensional imaging of the nucleon. After that, I try to give an overview of what we have already achieved and make an outlook for the future., Comment: plenary talk at the 21st International Symposium on Spin Physics, Oct 20-24, 2014, Peking University, Beijing, China

By applying the collinear expansion to the semi-inclusive hadron production process $e^++e^-\to h+\bar q(jet)+X$ at high energies, we construct a theoretical framework where the leading and higher twist contributions at the leading perturbative QCD can be calculated systematically. With this framework, we calculate the contributions up to twist-3 for spin-0, spin-1/2 and spin-1 hadrons respectively. We present the results for the hadronic tensors, the differential cross sections, the azimuthal asymmetries, and the polarizations of the hadrons., Comment: 33 pages, 4 figures

We extend the study of nuclear dependence of the transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions and azimuthal asymmetries to semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS) off polarized nuclear targets. We show that azimuthal asymmetries are suppressed for SIDIS off a polarized nuclear target relative to that off a polarized nucleon due to multiple scattering inside the nucleus. Using the value of transport parameter inside large nuclei extracted from jet quenching analyses in SIDIS off nuclear targets, we also present a numerical estimate of the nuclear suppression of the azimuthal asymmetry that might be useful to guide the future experimental studies of SIDIS off polarized nuclear targets., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure

We extend the study of hadron yield correlation in combination models in a recent publication to baryon-anti-baryon flavor correlations in heavy ion collisions. We show that the universal behaviors of the anti-baryon to baryon yield ratios as functions of that of $K^-$ to $K^+$ are naturally explained. We study also the "mixed ratios" and propose other measurements that might be sensitive to the hadronization mechanism., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

We apply collinear expansion to inclusive hadron production in $e^+e^-$ annihilation and derive a formalism suitable for systematic study of leading as well as higher twist contributions to fragmentation functions at the tree level. We make the calculations for hadrons with spin-0, spin-1/2 as well as spin-1 and obtain the results in terms of different components of fragmentation functions for the hadronic tensors, the differential cross section as well as hadron polarizations in different cases. The results show a number of interesting features such as the existence of transverse polarization for spin-1/2 hadrons at the twist-3 level, the quark polarization independence of the spin alignment of vector mesons., Comment: version to appear in PRD, 36 pages, 2 figures

We study nuclear dependences of azimuthal asymmetries in the Drell-Yan lepton pair production in nucleon-nucleus collisions with polarized nucleons.We use the "maximal two-gluon correlation approximation", so that we can relate the transverse momentum dependent quark distribution in a nucleus to that in a nucleon by a convolution with a Gaussian broadening.We use the Gaussian ansatz for the transverse momentum dependence of such quark distribution functions,and obtain the numerical results for the nuclear dependences.These results show that the averaged azimuthal asymmetries are suppressed., Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, Published version in PRC

Using the formalism obtained from collinear expansion, we calculate the differential cross section and azimuthal asymmetries in semi-inclusive deeply inelastic lepton-nucleon (nucleus) scattering process $e^-+N (A) \to e^-+q+X$ with both polarized beam and polarized target up to twist-3. We derive the azimuthal asymmetries in terms of twist-3 parton correlation functions. We simplify the results by using the QCD equation of motion that leads to a set of relationships between different twist-3 functions. We further study the nuclear dependence of azimuthal asymmetries and show that they have similar suppression factors as those in the unpolarized reactions., Comment: version to appear in Phys. Rev. D