Cross section and transverse single-spin asymmetry of muons from open heavy-flavor decays in polarized p+p collisions at s =200 GeV

The cross section and transverse single-spin asymmetries of μ- and μ+ from open heavy-flavor decays in polarized p+p collisions at s=200 GeV were measured by the PHENIX experiment during 2012 at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Because heavy-flavor production is dominated by gluon-gluon interactions at s=200 GeV, these measurements offer a unique opportunity to obtain information on the trigluon correlation functions. The measurements are performed at forward and backward rapidity (1.4<|y|<2.0) over the transverse momentum range of 1.25<pT<7 GeV/c for the cross section and 1.25<pT<5 GeV/c for the asymmetry measurements. The obtained cross section is compared to a fixed-order-plus-next-to-leading-log perturbative-quantum-chromodynamics calculation. The asymmetry results are consistent with zero within uncertainties, and a model calculation based on twist-3 three-gluon correlations agrees with the data.