The enhanced PHENIX dimuon system is ideal for detection of the decay branch
over a large
range (Fig. 10) with an integrated
acceptance of
. There are no processes likely to contribute any significant
background. ISAJET calculations at
give
, yielding
events with
.
Figure 10: Acceptance versus for
.
Bourrely and Soffer[27] emphasize the application of production to the
determination of the transversity structure function. The much larger values of x and
would
make this process complementary to transversity or helicity measurements in DY production.
Electroweak interference effects are maximized at the mass of the , leading to the possibility
of precise tests of QCD corrections to the elementary production mechanism. For example interference
between photon and
exchange modifies the
angular distribution characteristic
of the DY process. Near the
mass one has,
.
The charge asymmetry term,
, has been measured in unpolarized
collisions at
the Tevatron Collider by CDF[30]. We are currently examining the implications of this term for
polarized proton collisions.