Probing the parton densities of polarized photons at a linear e^+e^- collider

The present theoretical status of spin-dependent parton densities Delta f^{\gamma}(x,Q^2) of circularly polarized photons is briefly reviewed. It is then demonstrated that measurements of the deep-inelastic spin asymmetry A_1^{\gamma}\simeq g_1^{\gamma}/F_1^{\gamma} and of di-jet rapidity distributions at a future linear e^+e^- collider appear to be particularly suited for a determination the spin-dependent photonic quark and gluon densities, respectively. Special emphasis is devoted to a comparison of the different sources of polarized photons at a linear collider: the equivalent photon approximation and backscattered laser (Compton) photons. It is shown that backscattered laser photons are highly favorable, even indispensable, for decent measurements of the Delta f^{\gamma}(x,Q^2).Comment: 7 pages, LaTeX, 4 eps figures, uses amssymb, espcrc2 (included), and epsfig styles; Contribution to the Proceedings of the `International Conference on the Structure and Interactions of the Photon (Photon99)' [Nucl. Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.)], Freiburg, Germany, May 199

Next-to-Leading Order QCD Corrections to the Polarized Photoproduction of Heavy Flavors

We present a calculation of the next-to-leading order (O(alpha_s^2 alpha)) QCD corrections to heavy flavor photoproduction with longitudinally polarized beams. We apply our results to study the longitudinal spin asymmetry for the total charm quark production cross section which will be utilized by the forthcoming COMPASS experiment at CERN to obtain first direct information on the polarized gluon density Delta g. We also briefly discuss the main theoretical uncertainties inherent in this calculation. In particular we demonstrate that the factorization scale dependence is considerably reduced in next-to-leading order.Comment: 18 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures, uses epsfig and amssymb style

Double-transverse spin asymmetries at NLO

We report on a next-to-leading order QCD calculation of the cross section and the spin asymmetry for isolated large-p_T prompt photon production in collisions of transversely polarized protons. Corresponding measurements may be used at RHIC to determine the transversity parton distributions of the proton.Comment: 3 pages, LaTeX, 1 figure as eps file. Invited talk presented by W. Vogelsang at the "Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics (CIPANP 2003)", New York City, May 19-24, 200