Observation of Beam Spin Asymmetries in the Process $e p \rightarrow e \pi^{+}\pi^{-}X$ with CLAS12

Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 152501 (2021) The observation of beam spin asymmetries in two-pion production in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering off an unpolarized proton target is reported. The data presented here were taken in the fall of 2018 with the CLAS12 spectrometer using a 10.6 GeV longitudinally spin-polarized electron beam delivered by CEBAF at JLab. The measured asymmetries provide the first opportunity to extract the parton distribution function $e(x)$, which provides information about the interaction between gluons and quarks, in a collinear framework that offers cleaner access than previous measurements. The asymmetries also constitute the first ever signal sensitive to the helicity-dependent two-pion fragmentation function $G_1^\perp$. A clear sign change is observed around the $\rho$ mass that appears in model calculations and is indicative of the dependence of the produced pions on the helicity of the fragmenting quark.