Color fluctuation approximation for multiple interactions in leading twist theory of nuclear shadowing

The leading twist theory of nuclear shadowing predicts the shadowing correction to nuclear parton distributions at small $x$ by connecting it to the leading twist hard diffraction in electron-nucleon scattering. The uncertainties of the predictions are related to the shadowing effects resulting from the interaction of the hard probe with $N \ge 3$ nucleons. We argue that the pattern of hard diffraction observed at HERA allows one to reduce these uncertainties. We develop a new approach to the treatment of these multiple interactions, which is based on the concept of the color fluctuations and accounts for the presence of both point-like and hadron-like configurations in the virtual photon wave function. Using the developed framework, we update our predictions for the leading twist nuclear shadowing in nuclear parton distributions of heavy nuclei at small $x$.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. Revised to address the Referee's comments. Matches the published version, PLB 687 (2010) 167

Dijet production as a centrality trigger for p-p collisions at CERN LHC

We demonstrate that a trigger on hard dijet production at small rapidities allows to establish a quantitative distinction between central and peripheral collisions in pbar-p and p-p collisions at Tevatron and LHC energies. Such a trigger strongly reduces the effective impact parameters as compared to minimum bias events. This happens because the transverse spatial distribution of hard partons (x >~ 10^{-2}) in the proton is considerably narrower than that of soft partons, whose collisions dominate the total cross section. In the central collisions selected by the trigger, most of the partons with x >~ 10^{-2} interact with a gluon field whose strength rapidly increases with energy. At LHC (and to some extent already at Tevatron) energies the strength of this interaction approaches the unitarity ('black-body') limit. This leads to specific modifications of the final state, such as a higher probability of multijet events at small rapidities, a strong increase of the transverse momenta and depletion of the longitudinal momenta at large rapidities, and the appearance of long-range correlations in rapidity between the forward/backward fragmentation regions. The same pattern is expected for events with production of new heavy particles (Higgs, SUSY). Studies of these phenomena would be feasible with the CMS-TOTEM detector setup, and would have considerable impact on the exploration of the physics of strong gluon fields in QCD, as well as the search for new particles at LHC.Comment: 17 pages, Revtex 4, 14 EPS figures. Expanded discussion of some points, added 3 new figures and new references. Included comment on connection with cosmic ray physics near the GZK cutoff. To appear in Phys Rev

Asymmetric Colliding Nuclear Matter Approach in Heavy Ion Collisions

The early stage of a heavy ion collision is governed by local non-equilibrium momentum distributions which have been approximated by colliding nuclear matter configurations, i.e. by two Lorentz elongated Fermi ellipsoids. This approach has been extended from the previous assumption of symmetric systems to asymmetric 2-Fermi sphere configurations, i.e. to different densities. This provides a smoother transition from the limiting situation of two interpenetrating currents to an equilibrated system. The model is applied to the dynamical situations of heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies within the framework of relativistic transport (RBUU) calculations. We find that the extended colliding nuclear matter approach is more appropriate to describe collective reaction dynamics in terms of flow observables, in particular, for the elliptic flow at low energies.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Nuclear Physics

On the shape of a rapid hadron in QCD

We visualize the fundamental property of pQCD: the smaller size of the colorless quark-gluon configurations leads to a more rapid increase of its interaction with energy. Within the frame of dipole model we use the $k_t$ factorization theorem to generalize the DGLAP approximation and/or leading $\ln(x_0/x)$ approximation and evaluate the interaction of quark dipole with a target. In the limit of fixed $Q^2$ and $x\to 0$ we found the increase with energy of transverse momenta of quark(antiquark) within q$\bar q$ pair produced by strongly virtual photon. The average $p^2_t$ is evaluated analytically within the double logarithmic approximation. We demonstrate that the invariant mass$^2$ of the q$\bar q$ pair increases with the energy as $M^2_0(x_0/x)^{\lambda}$, where $\lambda\sim 0.4\alpha_sN_c/\pi$ for transverse photons, and as $\sim M^2_0 \exp{0.17[(4\alpha_sN_c/\pi)\log(x_0/x)]^{1/2}}$ for longitudinal photons, where $M^2_0 \approx 0.7Q^2$ at the energies of the order $s_0\sim 10^4$ GeV$^2$ ($x_0\sim 10^{-2}$). The magnitude of the effect depends strongly on the small $x$ behavior of the gluon distribution. Similar pattern of the energy dependence of $M^2$ is found in the LO DGLAP approximation generalized to account for $k_t$ factorization. We discuss the impact of the found phenomenon on the dependence of the coherence length on the initial energy and demonstrate that the shape of final hadron state in DIS has biconcave form instead of pancake. Some implications of the found phenomena for the hard processes in pp collisions are discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, uses epstopdf.sty typos correcte

Energy losses in the black disc regime and correlation effects in the STAR forward pion production in dAu collisions

We argue that in the small x processes, in the black disc QCD regime (BDR) a very forward parton propagating through the nuclear matter should loose a significant and increasing with energy and atomic number fraction of its initial energy as a result of dominance of inelastic interactions, causality and energy-momentum conservation. We evaluate these energy losses and find them to lead to the significant suppression of the forward jet production in the central NA collisions at collider energies with a moderate suppression of recoiling jet at central rapidities. We confront our expectations with the recent RHIC data of the STAR collaboration on the probability, $P$, for emission of at least one fast hadron at a central rapidity in association with production of a very forward high $p_t$ neutral pion in $pp$ and $dAu$ collisions. We calculate the A-dependence of $P$, and find that the data imply a strong suppression of leading pion production at central impact parameters. We also conclude that production of recoil jets in the hard subprocess is not suppressed providing further evidence for the dominance of peripheral collisions. Both features of the data are consistent with the onset of BDR. We suggest new phenomena and new observables to investigate BDR at RHIC and LHC.Comment: 18 pages,final text to be published in Phys.Lett.B, evaluation of the fractional energy energy losses in the black disk regime is ellaborate

Triple-Pomeron Matrix Model for Dispersive Corrections to Nucleon-Nucleus Total Cross Section

Dispersive corrections to the total cross section for high-energy scattering from a heavy nucleus are calculated using a matrix model, based on the triple-Pomeron behavior of diffractive scattering from a single nucleon, for the cross section operator connecting different states of the projectile nucleon . Energy-dependent effects due to the decrease in longitudinal momentum transfers and the opening of more channels with increasing energy are included. The three leading terms in an expansion in the number of inelastic transitions are evaluated and compared to exact results for the model in the uniform nuclear density approximation for the the scattering of nucleons from Pb^{208} for laboratory momenta ranging from 50 to 200 GeV/c.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, RevTex

Effects of momentum-dependent symmetry potential on heavy-ion collisions induced by neutron-rich nuclei

Using an isospin- and momentum-dependent transport model we study effects of the momentum-dependent symmetry potential on heavy-ion collisions induced by neutron-rich nuclei. It is found that symmetry potentials with and without the momentum-dependence but corresponding to the same density-dependent symmetry energy $E_{sym}(\rho)$ lead to significantly different predictions on several $E_{sym}(\rho)$-sensitive experimental observables especially for energetic nucleons. The momentum- and density-dependence of the symmetry potential have to be determined simultaneously in order to extract the $E_{sym}(\rho)$ accurately. The isospin asymmetry of midrapidity nucleons at high transverse momenta is particularly sensitive to the momentum-dependence of the symmetry potential. It is thus very useful for investigating accurately the equation of state of dense neutron-rich matter.Comment: The version to appear in Nucl. Phys. A. A paragraph and a figure on neutron and proton effective masses in neutron-rich matter are adde

Higher twists and maxima for DIS on nuclei in high density QCD region

We show that the ratio of different structure functions have a maximum which depends on $x_B$ and $A$. We argue that these maxima are proportional to the saturation scale. The analysis of leading and higher twist contributions for different observables is given with the aim of determining the kinematic region where high parton density effects could be seen experimentally.Comment: 16 pages of Latex file,8 figures in eps file

Fragment Formation in Central Heavy Ion Collisions at Relativistic Energies

We perform a systematic study of the fragmentation path of excited nuclear matter in central heavy ion collisions at the intermediate energy of $0.4 AGeV$. The theoretical calculations are based on a Relativistic Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck ($RBUU$) transport equation including stochastic effects. A Relativistic Mean Field ($RMF$) approach is used, based on a non-linear Lagrangian, with coupling constants tuned to reproduce the high density results of calculations with correlations. At variance with the case at Fermi energies, a new fast clusterization mechanism is revealed in the early compression stage of the reaction dynamics. Fragments appear directly produced from phase-space fluctuations due to two-body correlations. In-medium effects of the elastic nucleon-nucleon cross sections on the fragmentation dynamics are particularly discussed. The subsequent evolution of the primordial clusters is treated using a simple phenomenological phase space coalescence algorithm. The reliability of the approach, formation and recognition, is investigated in detail by comparing fragment momentum space distributions {\it and simultaneously} their yields with recent experimental data of the $FOPI$ collaboration by varying the system size of the colliding system, i.e. its compressional energy (pressure, radial flow). We find an excellent agreement between theory and experiment in almost all the cases and, on the other hand, some limitations of the simple coalescence model. Furthermore, the temporal evolution of the fragment structure is explored with a clear evidence of an earlier formation of the heavier clusters, that will appear as interesting $relics$ of the high density phase of the nuclear Equation of State ($EoS$).Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, Latex Elsart Style, minor corrections in p.7, two refs. added, Nucl.Phys.A, accepte

The Impact of QCD and Light-Cone Quantum Mechanics on Nuclear Physics

We discuss a number of novel applications of Quantum Chromodynamics to nuclear structure and dynamics, such as the reduced amplitude formalism for exclusive nuclear amplitudes. We particularly emphasize the importance of light-cone Hamiltonian and Fock State methods as a tool for describing the wavefunctions of composite relativistic many-body systems and their interactions. We also show that the use of covariant kinematics leads to nontrivial corrections to the standard formulae for the axial, magnetic, and quadrupole moments of nucleons and nuclei.Comment: 25 pages, uuencoded postscript file---To obtain a hard copy of this paper, send e-mail to [email protected] and ask fo