# Measurement of Longitudinal Spin Transfer to Λ Hyperons in Deep-Inelastic Lepton Scattering

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We gratefully acknowledge the DESY management for its support and the DESY staff and the staffs of the collaborating institutions. This work was supported by the FWO-Flanders, Belgium; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; the INTAS, HCM, and TMR network contributions from the European Community; the German Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung; the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD); the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN); Monbusho, JSPS, and Toary Science Foundation of Japan; the Dutch Foundation for Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM); the U.K. Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council; and the U.S. Department of Energy and National Science Foundation.

## 

As described above, the procedure used to extract the longitudinal spin transfer coefficient $`D_{LL^{}}`$ \[Eq. (5)\] is based on the assumption that the selected spin quantization axis $`L^{}`$ is indeed the direction of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization. However, if other components of the polarization exist, the extracted result for $`D_{LL^{}}`$ may be contaminated via interference of certain additional terms in the cross section with higher-order terms in the HERMES angular acceptance.

Let us introduce 3 perpendicular axes in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ center of mass frame, defined by two chosen unit vectors $`\widehat{J}`$ and $`\widehat{T}`$: $`\widehat{e}_1\widehat{J}`$, $`\widehat{e}_2\widehat{J}\times \widehat{T}/|\widehat{J}\times \widehat{T}|`$, $`\widehat{e}_3\widehat{e}_1\times \widehat{e}_2`$. Further, let the symbol $`D_{Li}`$ refer to the probability for spin transfer from a longitudinally polarized virtual photon to a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ baryon with polarization along the axis $`i`$; the symbol $`D_{Ui}`$ denotes the probability for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization along the axis $`i`$ given an unpolarized beam. We take the vector $`\widehat{J}`$ to represent our direction of interest for longitudinal spin transfer to the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, namely the direction of the virtual photon. The quantity $`D_{L1}`$ is thus identical to the quantity $`D_{LL^{}}^\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ defined previously \[Eq. (3)\]. The vector $`\widehat{T}`$ may be either of the other two vectors available: the electron beam direction or the momentum of the final state $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The second axis $`\widehat{e}_2`$ thus represents the direction normal to the production plane. The number of interfering terms is greatly restricted by applying parity and rotational invariance to a general angular decomposition of the cross section, and by the fact that the HERMES spectrometer is symmetric in the vertical coordinate. Finally one is left with only two terms:

$$\alpha D_{U2}\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }_2(P_B\mathrm{sin}(n\mathrm{\Phi }))$$
(7)   
and

$$\alpha P_BD(y)D_{L3}\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }_3(1+C_n\mathrm{cos}(n\mathrm{\Phi })).$$
(8)   
In obtaining these expressions, it is important to note that the axis $`\widehat{e}_2`$, which represents the direction normal to the reaction plane, transforms as a pseudo-vector, while $`\widehat{e}_1`$ and $`\widehat{e}_3`$ transform as vectors. The first contribution \[Eq. (7)\] depends entirely on a non-zero $`P_B\mathrm{sin}(n\mathrm{\Phi })`$ azimuthal moment in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ denotes the angle between the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and the electron scattering plane, around the $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ vector. Such moments have been measured to be small in pion production. In addition, they are coupled here with a transverse $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization and can only appear in the cross section at higher twist (i.e. they are suppressed at order $`p_T/Q`$). The second term \[Eq. (8)\] corresponds to the other component of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ spin transfer in the production plane, and could contribute if the choosen spin quantization axis differs dramatically from the true $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization direction. Monte Carlo studies reveal that even if either of the coefficients $`D_{U2}`$ or $`D_{L3}`$ were of the same magnitude as $`D_{L1}`$, they would contribute to the extracted component at a level of less than 10% of its value.

* References  are available as HERMES internal notes, and can be accessed on the HERMES web pages:   

http://hermes.desy.de/notes/