Perturbative stability of the QCD predictions for single spin asymmetry inheavy quark photoproduction

We present the threshold resummation for the single spin asymmetry in heavy flavor production by linearly polarized photons. We analyze the soft-gluon contributions to the asymmetry at fixed order in ce, to the next-to-leadin g logarithmic accuracy. Our analysis shows that, contrary to the production cross section, the azimuthal asymmetry is practically insensitive to soft radiation. Our calculations of the asymmetry up to the 6th order in alphas lead only to small corrections (of order of few percent) to the Born predic tions at energies of the fixed target experiments. Fast convergence of the perturbative series for the azimuthal asymmetry is due to the factorization properties of the photon-hadron cross section. We conclude that measuremen ts of the single spin asymmetry would provide an excellent test of pQCD app licability to heavy flavor production. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All r ights reserved.