GeMSE: A new Low-Background Facility for Meteorite and Material Screening

We are currently setting up a facility for low-background gamma-ray spectrometry based on a HPGe detector. It is dedicated to material screening for the XENON and DARWIN dark matter projects as well as to the characterization of meteorites. The detector will be installed in a medium depth ($\sim$620 m.w.e.) underground laboratory in Switzerland with several layers of shielding and an active muon-veto. The GeMSE facility will be operational by fall 2015 with an expected background rate of $\sim$250 counts/day (100-2700 keV).Comment: The following article appeared in AIP Conf. Proc. 1672, 120004 (2015) and may be found at http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/proceeding/aipcp/10.1063/1.4928010. The muon spectrum in Figure 4 (left) was corrected due to a bug in the code. After correction the muon flux is reduced by a factor of about

Single spin asymmetries in DIS

We consider possible mechanisms for single spin asymmetries in inclusive Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) processes with unpolarized leptons and transversely polarized nucleons. Tests for the effects of non-zero \bfk_\perp, for the properties of spin dependent quark fragmentations and for quark helicity conservation are suggested.Comment: 5 pages, LaTeX, no figures. Revised version, to be published in Phys. Rev. D. Some equations and statements added to clarify text and notation

Accessing transversity via J/Psi production in polarized p-pbar interactions

We discuss the possibility of a direct access to transversity distributions by measuring the double transverse spin asymmetry A_TT in p pbar --> J/Psi + X --> l^- l^+ + X processes at future GSI-HESR experiments with polarized protons and anti-protons. In the J/Psi resonance production region, with 30 < s < 45 GeV^2, both the cross-section and A_TT are expected to be sufficiently large to allow a measurement of h_1^q(x,M^2); numerical estimates are given.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures. Version accepted for publication in PLB; comments and references adde

On asymmetry in inclusive pion production

On the basis of the mechanism proposed for one-spin asymmetries in inclusive hadron production we specify an $x$--dependence of asymmetries in inclusive processes of pion production. The main role in generation of this asymmetry belongs to the orbital angular momentum ofquark-antiquark cloud in internal structure of constituent quarks. The $x$--dependence of asymmetries in the charged pion production at large $x$ reflects the corresponding dependence of constituent quark polarization in the polarized proton.Comment: LaTeX, 8 pages, 3 figures. One figure added, as it appears in Phys. Rev.

Accessing Transversity in Double-Spin Asymmetries at the BNL-RHIC

We give upper bounds for transverse double-spin asymmetries in polarized proton-proton collisions by saturating the positivity constraint for the transversity densities at a low hadronic resolution scale. We consider prompt photon, jet, pion, and heavy flavor production at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Estimates of the expected statistical accuracy for such measurements are presented, taking into account the acceptance of the RHIC detectors.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures as eps file

Polarization in Hadronic \Lambda Hyperon Production and Chiral-Odd Twist-3 Distribution

Polarization of the \Lambda hyperon produced with a large transverse momentum in the unpolarized nucleon-nucleon collision is analyzed in the framework of QCD factorization. We focus on the mechanism in which the soft-gluon component of the chiral-odd spin-independent twist-3 quark distribution E_F(x,x) becomes a source of the polarized quark fragmenting into the polarized \Lambda. Our simple model estimate for this contribution indicates that it gives rise to a significant \Lambda polarization at large x_F. This is in parallel with the observation that the soft gluon pole mechanism gives rise to a large single transverse spin asymmetry in the pion production at x_F\to 1.Comment: 10 pages in LaTex + 5 figures in PS files. Phys. Rev. D in press. Title changed and some discussions adde