  We present a measurement of the double longitudinal spin asymmetry in
inclusive pi^0 production in polarized proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)=200
GeV. The data were taken at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider with average
beam polarizations of 26%. The measurements are the first of a program to study
the longitudinal spin structure of the proton, using strongly interacting
probes, at collider energies. The asymmetry is presented for transverse momenta
1-5 GeV/c at mid-rapidity, where next-to-leading order perturbative quantum
chromodynamic (NLO pQCD) calculations describe the unpolarized cross section
well. The observed asymmetry is small and is compared with a NLO pQCD
calculation with a range of polarized gluon distributions.

High Energy Physics - Experiment