Proton-deuteron asymmetry in Drell-Yan processes and polarized light-antiquark distributions

We discuss the relation between the ratio of the proton-deuteron (pd) Drell-Yan cross section to the proton-proton (pp) one Delta(T)sigma(pd)/2 Delta((T))sigma(pp) and the flavor asymmetry in polarized light-antiquark distributions. Using a recent formalism of the polarized pd Drell-Yan process, we show that the difference between the pp and pd cross sections is valuable for finding not only the flavor asymmetry in longitudinally polarized antiquark distributions but also the one in transversity distributions. It is especially important that we point out the possibility of measuring the flavor asymmetry in the transversity distributions because it cannot be found in W production processes and inclusive lepton scattering due to the chiral-odd property. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.