2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/43090Recent e+e- annihilation experiments show a striking spin alignment of vector mesons produced in the fragmentation of a polarized quark.We show that these data imply a simple relation between the polarization of the anti-quark, which is produced in the fragmentation process to combine with the fragmenting quark to form the meson, and that of the fragmenting quark. After having obtained a good fit to the e+e- data, we extend the calculations to lepton-nucleon and nucleon-nucleon collisions with polarized beams. We also discuss the relation between the spin alignment of vector meson in unpolarized hadron-hadron collisions and the single-spin left-right asymmetry. We make predictions for the polarization of the vector mesons in these reactions which can be checked by future experiments.Prepared for the proceedings of the X-th International Workshop on High Energy Spin Physics, JINR Dubna, Sept. 16 - 20, 2003High Energy Physics - PhenomenologySpin Alignment of Vector Mesons in Polarized and Unpolarized High Energy Reactionstext