Flavor decomposition of the sea-quark helicity distributions in the nucleon from semiinclusive deep inelastic scattering

• Published in: Physical review letters 2004-01, Vol.92 (1), p.012005-012005, Article 012005
• Main Authors: Airapetian, A, Akopov, N, Akopov, Z, Amarian, M, Ammosov, V V, Andrus, A, Aschenauer, E C, Augustyniak, W, Avakian, R, Avetissian, A, Avetissian, E, Bailey, P, Baturin, V, Baumgarten, C, Beckmann, M, Belostotski, S, Bernreuther, S, Bianchi, N, Blok, H P, Böttcher, H, Borissov, A, Bouwhuis, M, Brack, J, Brüll, A, Bryzgalov, V, Capitani, G P, Chiang, H C, Ciullo, G, Contalbrigo, M, Dalpiaz, P F, De Leo, R, De Nardo, L, De Sanctis, E, Devitsin, E, Di Nezza, P, Düren, M, Ehrenfried, M, Elalaoui-Moulay, A, Elbakian, G, Ellinghaus, F, Elschenbroich, U, Ely, J, Fabbri, R, Fantoni, A, Fechtchenko, A, Felawka, L, Fox, B, Franz, J, Frullani, S, Gärber, Y, Gapienko, G, Gapienko, V, Garibaldi, F, Garrow, K, Garutti, E, Gaskell, D, Gavrilov, G, Gharibyan, V, Graw, G, Grebeniouk, O, Greeniaus, L G, Hafidi, K, Hartig, M, Hasch, D, Heesbeen, D, Henoch, M, Hertenberger, R, Hesselink, W H A, Hillenbrand, A, Hoek, M, Holler, Y, Hommez, B, Iarygin, G, Ivanilov, A, Izotov, A, Jackson, H E, Jgoun, A, Kaiser, R, Kinney, E, Kisselev, A, Königsmann, K, Kopytin, M, Korotkov, V, Kozlov, V, Krauss, B, Krivokhijine, V G, Lagamba, L, Lapikás, L, Laziev, A, Lenisa, P, Liebing, P, Lindemann, T, Lipka, K, Lorenzon, W, Lu, J, Maiheu, B, Makins, N C R, Marianski, B, Marukyan, H, Masoli, F
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.92.012005

Double-spin asymmetries of semiinclusive cross sections for the production of identified pions and kaons have been measured in deep inelastic scattering of polarized positrons on a polarized deuterium target. Five helicity distributions including those for three sea quark flavors were extracted from these data together with reanalyzed previous data for identified pions from a hydrogen target. These distributions are consistent with zero for all three sea flavors. A recently predicted flavor asymmetry in the polarization of the light quark sea appears to be disfavored by the data.