Measurement of Asymmetries of Inclusive Pion Production in Proton-Proton Interactions at 6 and 11.8 GeV/c

We have used the polarized proton beam at the Argonne zero-gradient synchrotron to measure left-right asymmetries in the processes $p_{\mathrm{pol}}+p\to {\pi }^{\pm }\pm X$ at $p_0=6\mathrm{} \mathrm{and} 11.8$ Gev/c and $x\equiv \frac{{p_l}^{*}}{p_{max}}=0.1\mathrm{} \mathrm{to} 0.9$. For both pion charges, the asymmetries show considerable but different structure in $u$, the square of the four-momentum transfer between the incident proton and the outgoing pion. The data suggest that pions produced at large $x$ in $\mathrm{pp}$ collisions result from a baryon-exchange process.