Monte Carlo implementation of polarized hadronization

Abstract

We study the polarized quark hadronization in a Monte Carlo (MC) framework based on the recent extension of the quark-jet framework, where a self-consistent treatment of the quark polarization transfer in a sequential hadronization picture has been presented. Here, we first adopt this approach for MC simulations of the hadronization process with a finite number of produced hadrons, expressing the relevant probabilities in terms of the eight leading twist quark-to-quark transverse-momentum-dependent (TMD) splitting functions (SFs) for elementary q→q′+h transition. We present explicit expressions for the unpolarized and Collins fragmentation functions (FFs) of unpolarized hadrons emitted at rank 2. Further, we demonstrate that all the current spectator-type model calculations of the leading twist quark-to-quark TMD SFs violate the positivity constraints, and we propose a quark model based ansatz for these input functions that circumvents the problem. We validate our MC framework by explicitly proving the absence of unphysical azimuthal modulations of the computed polarized FFs, and by precisely reproducing the earlier derived explicit results for rank-2 pions. Finally, we present the full results for pion unpolarized and Collins FFs, as well as the corresponding analyzing powers from high statistics MC simulations with a large number of produced hadrons for two different model input elementary SFs. The results for both sets of input functions exhibit the same general features of an opposite signed Collins function for favored and unfavored channels at large z and, at the same time, demonstrate the flexibility of the quark-jet framework by producing significantly different dependences of the results at mid to low z for the two model inputs.