Shadowing of gluons in perturbative QCD: A comparison of different models

We investigate the different perturbative QCD-based models for nuclear shadowing of gluons. We show that in the kinematic region appropriate to RHIC experiment, all models give similar estimates for the magnitude of gluon shadowing. At scales relevant to LHC, there is a sizable difference between predictions of the different models.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Prompt photons at RHIC

We calculate the inclusive cross section for prompt photon production in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC energies ($\sqrt{s}=130$ GeV and $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV) in the central rapidity region including next-to-leading order, $O(\alpha_{em}\alpha_s^2)$, radiative corrections, initial state nuclear shadowing and parton energy loss effects. We show that there is a significant suppression of the nuclear cross section, up to $\sim 30$ at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV, due to shadowing and medium induced parton energy loss effects. We find that the next-to-leading order contributions are large and have a strong $p_t$ dependence.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, expanded discussion of the K facto

Sex-Dependent Modulation of Acute Stress Reactivity After Early Life Stress in Mice:Relevance of Mineralocorticoid Receptor Expression

Early life stress (ELS) is considered a major risk factor for developing psychopathology. Increasing evidence points towards sex-dependent dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis as a contributing mechanism. Additionally, clinical studies suggest that the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) may further confer genetic vulnerability/resilience on a background of ELS. The link between ELS, sex and the HPA axis and how this interacts with MR genotype is understudied, yet important to understand vulnerability/resilience to stress. We used the early life-limited nesting and bedding model to test the effect of ELS on HPA properties in adult female and male mice carrying a forebrain-specific heterozygous knockout for MR. Basal HPA axis activity was measured by circadian peak and nadir corticosterone levels, in addition to body weight and weight of stress-sensitive tissues. HPA axis reactivity was assessed by mapping corticosterone levels after 10 min immobilization. Additionally, we measured the effects of ELS on steroid receptor [MR and glucocorticoid receptor (GR)] levels in the dorsal hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) with western blot. Finally, behavioral reactivity towards a novel environment was measured as a proxy for anxiety-like behavior. Results show that HPA axis activity under rest conditions was not affected by ELS. HPA axis reactivity after immobilization was decreased by ELS in females and increased, at trend-level in males. This effect in females was further exacerbated by low expression of the MR. We also observed a sex*ELS interaction regarding MR and GR expression in the dorsal hippocampus, with a significant upregulation of MR in males only. The sex-dependent interaction with ELS was not reflected in the behavioral response to novel environment and time spent in a sheltered compartment. We did find increased locomotor activity in all groups after a history of ELS, which attenuated after 4 h in males but not females regardless of condition. Our findings support that ELS alters HPA axis functioning sex-dependently. Genetic predisposition to low MR function may render females more susceptible to the harmful effect of ELS whereas in males low MR function promotes resilience. We propose that this model may be a useful tool to investigate the underlying mechanisms of sex-dependent and genetic vulnerability/resilience to stress-related psychopathology

What is the Evidence for the Color Glass Condensate?

I introduce the concept of the Color Glass Condensate. I review data from HERA and RHIC which suggest that such a universal form of matter has been found

Limiting fragmentation in hadron-hadron collisions at high energies

Limiting fragmentation in proton-proton, deuteron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions is analyzed in the framework of the Balitsky-Kovchegov equation in high energy QCD. Good agreement with experimental data is obtained for a wide range of energies. Further detailed tests of limiting fragmentation at RHIC and the LHC will provide insight into the evolution equations for high energy QCD.Comment: 28 pages, 10 figures (2 new figures, text slightly expanded, and some additional references

Non-perturbative computation of double inclusive gluon production in the Glasma

The near-side ridge observed in A+A collisions at RHIC has been described as arising from the radial flow of Glasma flux tubes formed at very early times in the collisions. We investigate the viability of this scenario by performing a non-perturbative numerical computation of double inclusive gluon production in the Glasma. Our results support the conjecture that the range of transverse color screening of correlations determining the size of the flux tubes is a semi-hard scale, albeit with non-trivial structure. We discuss our results in the context of ridge correlations in the RHIC heavy ion experiments.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figures, uses JHEP3.cls V2: small clarifications, published in JHE

Cronin Effect and High-p_T Suppression in pA Collisions

We review the predictions of the theory of Color Glass Condensate for gluon production cross section in p(d)A collisions. We demonstrate that at moderate energies, when the gluon production cross section can be calculated in the framework of McLerran-Venugopalan model, it has only partonic level Cronin effect in it. At higher energies/rapidities corresponding to smaller values of Bjorken x quantum evolution becomes important. The effect of quantum evolution at higher energies/rapidities is to introduce suppression of high-p_T gluons slightly decreasing the Cronin enhancement. At still higher energies/rapidities quantum evolution leads to suppression of produced gluons at all values of p_T.Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures, v2: extended and improved discussion, references adde

Observations on dA scattering at forward rapidities

We point out that the suppression in the ratio R_dAu recently observed by the BRAHMS collaboration in forward scattering is stronger than usually appreciated. This is related to the fact that at forward rapidities BRAHMS measures negatively charged hadrons and that R_dAu is defined from the ratio of dA and pp scattering cross sections. We also investigate the influence of standard shadowing on R_dAu, and the typical values of partonic momentum fractions relevant in forward scattering. We find that x_Au > 0.02 dominate in the cross section.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 10 figures as eps files, minor addition, version to appear in Phys.Lett.

Cronin effect vs. geometrical shadowing in d+Au collisions at RHIC

Multiple initial state parton interactions in p(d)+Au collisions are calculated in a Glauber-Eikonal formalism. The convolution of perturbative QCD parton-nucleon cross sections predicts naturally the competing pattern of low-pT suppression due geometrical shadowing, and a moderate-pT Cronin enhancement of hadron spectra. The formal equivalence to recent classical Yang-Mills calculations is demonstrated, but our approach is shown to be more general in the large x>0.01 domain because it automatically incorporates the finite kinematic constraints of both quark and gluon processes in the fragmentation regions, and accounts for the observed spectra in elementary pp-->\pi+X processes in the RHIC energy range, sqrt{s} = 20-200 GeV. The Glauber-Eikonal formalism can be used as a baseline to extract the magnitude of dynamical shadowing effects from the experimental data at differente centralities and pseudo-rapidities.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. A bug in the kt-smearing routine was found and corrected. K-factor an p0 have then been refitted in p+p collisions. Some clarifications on the proposed approach have been adde

Bjorken Flow, Plasma Instabilities, and Thermalization

At asymptotically high energies, thermalization in heavy ion collisions can be described via weak-coupling QCD. We present a complete treatment of how thermalization proceeds, at the parametric weak-coupling level. We show that plasma instabilities dominate the dynamics, from immediately after the collision until well after the plasma becomes nearly in equilibrium. Initially they drive the system close to isotropy, but Bjorken expansion and increasing diluteness makes the system again become more anisotropic. At time \tau ~ \alpha^(-12/5) Q^(-1) the dynamics become dominated by a nearly-thermal bath; and at time \tau ~ \alpha^(-5/2) Q^(-1)$ the bath comes to dominate the energy density, completing thermalization. After this time there is a nearly isotropic and thermal Quark-Gluon Plasma.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure