Measurement Of Single Spin Asymmetry In~3He(e,c’K~±)X From A Transversely Polarized~3He Target

Spin-dependent observables are a powerful tool to probe the internal structure of the nucleon and to study the dynamics of the strong interaction. Experimental study of the nucleon spin structure has provided us with many exciting and often surprising results. The so-called "spin crisis" in the1980s revealed the limitation of naive quark-parton models and led to a worldwide effort to study the nucleon spin structure. However, this effort has been focused mainly on the nucleon’s longitudinal spin structure. Recently, when the pioneer work revealed the significant role that transverse spin plays in understanding the full structure of the nucleon and in un-derstanding the dynamics of the strong interaction, the study of the transverse spin structure became the new focus of the worldwide effort.Jefferson Lab (JLab) is located at Newport News, VA, US. It is equipped with the continuous electron beam accelerator facility (CEBAF) and four experimental halls:A, B, C and D. The accelerator can provide a continuous electron beam (2ns beam bunch) with high polarization (up to-90%) and high current (up to-200μA) for fixed target experiments in all experimental halls. Hall A consists of two standard high-resolution spectrometers (HRS):left HRS (LHRS) and right HRS (RHRS). Another spectrometer, the BigBite spectrometer, can be installed on request by certain experiments.The experiment E06-010("Transversity Experiment") at JLab Hall A is the first measurement of the transverse spin structure of the neutron using a transversely polarized3He target and a5.89GeV incident electron beam. The experiment mea-sured target single spin asymmetries (SSA) and beam-target double-pin asymmetries (DSA) in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering (SIDIS) and in deep-inelastic scat-tering (DIS) processes. It also collected inclusive hadron (pion, kaon and proton) production data parasitically. The scattered electrons were detected in the BigBite spectrometer with associated detectors while the hadrons were detected with the LHRS which had excellent particle identification capabilities.In this dissertation, the first measurement of target single spin asymmetries of charged kaons produced in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering of electrons off a transversely polarized3He target will be discussed. Both the Collins and Sivers moments, which are related to the nucleon transversity and Sivers distributions, re-spectively, are extracted over the kinematical range of0.1<xbj<0.4for K+and K-production. While the Collins and Sivers moments for K+are consistent with zero within the experimental uncertainties, both moments for K-favor negative values. The Sivers moments are compared to the theoretical prediction from a phenomeno-logical fit to the world data. While the K+Sivers moments are consistent with the prediction, the K-results differ from the prediction at the2-sigma level. The mea-surements of SSA and DSA in the inclusive hadron (pion, kaon, proton) production channels, with an average transverse momentum...