Observation of asymmetry in inclusive proton production by 6-GeV/ c polarized protons

Left-right asymmetries of fast forward protons produced in the inclusive reaction p/sub arrow-up/p ..-->.. pX have been measured using a 6-GeV/c polarized proton beam and the Argonne Effective Mass Spectrometer. The experiment covers the kinematic range p/sub T/ /sup 2/ < or = 0.72 GeV/sup 2/ and M/sub X/ < or = 2.6 GeV with 1.6 x 10/sup 5/ inelastic events. The average asymmetry is 0.047 +- 0.010, with the same sign as the asymmetry in proton-proton elastic scattering and roughly half the magnitude. In order to facilitate comparison with future high-energy data in the triple-Regge region, finite-mass-sum-rule integrals are used to average over the low-M/sub X/ data of this experiment.