A polarization from unpolarized quark fragmentation - art. no. 054029

The long-standing problem of explaining the observed polarization of Lambda hyperons, inclusively produced in the high-energy collisions of unpolarize d hadrons, is tackled by considering spin- and k(perpendicular to)-dependen t quark-fragmentation functions. The data on Lambda 's and <(<Lambda>)over bar>'s produced in p-N processes are used to determine simple phenomenologi cal expressions for these new "polarizing fragmentation functions," which d escribe the experiments remarkably well.