Transverse Target Moments of Dihadron Production in Semi-inclusive Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERMES.

Abstract

Pseudo-scalar meson production in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS) at HERMES has provided essential information towards the understanding of the transverse momentum dependent structure of the proton. SIDIS dihadron (hadron pair) production also provides access to the structure of the proton and is complimentary to that provided by pseudo-scalars production, as the same parton distribution functions are involved. For example, while pion and kaon final states allow access to flavor combinations of the Sivers distribution function, SIDIS $phi$ meson production (included in the $K^+K^-$ dihadron sample) allows direct access to the Sivers function for the strange quarks. The Sivers function for strange quarks is also related to the orbital angular momentum of the gluons. In the SIDIS cross section, the distribution functions are integrated with fragmentation functions for the respective final states. These fragmentation functions yield information regarding the quark hadronization process. Of particular interest, the Lund/Artru model of fragmentation makes specific predictions regarding the relation between results for dihadron and pseudo-scalar meson production for certain transverse momentum dependent moments. This dissertation presents the first transverse momentum dependent (non-collinear) analysis of the transverse target moments in SIDIS dihadron production, extracting results from the 2002-2005 HERMES data set for $pi^+pi^0$, $pi^+pi^-$, $pi^-pi^0$ and $K^+K^-$ dihadrons. A new transverse momentum dependent Monte Carlo generator, TMDGen, is also introduced. Additionally, several theoretical developments have been completed, including a new partial wave analysis of the fragmentation functions, computation of the next-to-leading twist dihadron cross section, and the first model calculation for transverse momentum dependent dihadron fragmentation functions.