Speculation on the Helicity of a Virtual (Timelike) Photon Emitted in Hadron-Hadron Collisions

Abstract

We conjecture that the linear polarization of a large-mass timelike photon emitted in high-energy hadron-hadron collisions is predominantly longitudinal ($\lambda =0\mathrm{}$). The conjecture can be tested experimentally by studying the decay angular distribution of muon pairs produced in $p\left(\pi \right)+N\to {\mu }^{+}+{\mu }^{-}+\mathrm{hadronic}\mathrm{system}.$