Abstract

The azimuthal spin asymmetries for pion production in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering of unpolarized charged lepton beams on longitudinally polarized nucleon targets are reanalyzed by taking into account an important sign correction to previous formulas. It is found that different approaches of distribution functions and fragmentation functions may lead to distinct predictions on the azimuthal asymmetries measured in the HERMES experiments; thus, the available data cannot be considered as a direct measurement of quark transversity distributions, although they still can serve to provide useful information on these distributions and on T-odd fragmentation functions. Predictions of the azimuthal spin asymmetries for kaon production are also presented, with different approaches of distribution and fragmentation functions. The unfavored fragmentation functions cannot be neglected for K - and KS0 production in semi-inclusive deep inelastic processes. © 2002 The American Physical Society.