BOUNDS ON TRANSVERSE SPIN ASYMMETRIES FOR LAMBDA-BARYON PRODUCTION INPP COLLISIONS AT BNL RHIC

We study inclusive Lambda hyperon production in pp collisions at BNL R HIC, with just one transversely polarized proton. We show that the mea surement of the spin transfer between the initial proton and the produ ced Lambda is sensitive to the proton transversity distributions and t o the corresponding Lambda transversity fragmentation functions. In vi ew of our present ignorance of these distributions and fragmentation f unctions, we resort to positivity bounds for making some predictions f or the corresponding spin transfer asymmetry. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scienc e B.V. AII rights reserved.