Hadron Diffractive Processes: the Structure of Soft Pomeron and Colour Screening

On the basis of the experimental data on diffractive processes in $\pi p$, $pp$ and $p \bar p$ collisions at intermediate, moderately high and high energies, we restore the scattering amplitude related to the $t$-channel exchange by vacuum quantum numbers by taking account of the diffractive $s$-channel rescatterings. At intermediate and moderately high energies, the $t$-channel exchange amplitude turns, with a good accuracy, into an effective pomeron which renders the results of the additive quark model. At superhigh energies the scattering amplitude provides a Froissart-type behaviour, with an asymptotic universality of cross sections such as $\sigma^{tot}_{\pi p}/\sigma^{tot}_{pp} \to 1$ at $s \to \infty$. The quark structure of hadrons being taken into account at the level of constituent quarks, the cross sections of pion and proton (antiproton) in the impact parameter space of quarks, $\sigma_{\pi}(\vec {r}_{1\perp},\vec {r}_{2\perp};s)$ and $\sigma_p(\vec {r}_{1\perp},\vec {r}_{2\perp},\vec {r}_{3\perp};s)$, are found as functions of $s$. These cross sections implicate the phenomenon of colour screening: they tend to zero at $|\vec r_{i\perp}-\vec r_{k\perp}| \to 0$. The effective colour screening radius for pion (proton) is found for different $s$. The predictions for the diffractive cross sections at superhigh energies are presented.Comment: LaTeX, epsfig.st

Phenomenological analysis of the double pion production in nucleon-nucleon collisions up to 2.2 GeV

With an effective Lagrangian approach, we analyze several NN \to NN\pi\pi channels by including various resonances with mass up to 1.72 GeV. For the channels with the pion pair of isospin zero, we confirm the dominance of N*(1440)\to N\sigma in the near threshold region. At higher energies and for channels with the final pion pair of isospin one, we find large contributions from N*(1440)\to \Delta\pi, double-Delta, \Delta(1600) \to N*(1440)\pi, \Delta(1600) \to \Delta\pi and \Delta(1620) \to \Delta\pi. There are also sizeable contributions from \Delta \to \Delta\pi, \Delta \to N\pi, N \to \Delta\pi and nucleon pole at energies close to the threshold. We well reproduce the total cross sections up to beam energies of 2.2 GeV except for the pp\to pp\pi^0\pi^0 channel at energies around 1.1 GeV and our results agree with the existing data of differential cross sections of pp \to pp\pi^+\pi^-, pp \to nn\pi^+\pi^+ and pp \to pp\pi^0\pi^0 which are measured at CELSIUS and COSY.Comment: 36 pages, 18 figure

D^+_s -> pi^+ pi^+ pi^- decay: the 1^3P_0 s anti-s component in scalar-isoscalar mesons

On the basis of data on the decay D^+_s -> pi^+ pi^+ pi^-, which goes dominantly via the transition D_s -> pi^+ s anti-s, we evaluate the 1^3P_0 s anti-s components in the scalar-isoscalar resonances f0(980), f0(1300), f0(1500) and broad state f0(1200-1600)$. The data point to a large s anti-s component in the f0(980): 40% < s anti-s < 70%. Nearly 30% of the 1^3P_0 s anti-s component flows to the mass region 1300-1500 MeV being shared by f0(1300), f0(1500) and broad state f0(1200-1600): the interference of these states results in a peak near 1400 MeV with the width around 200 MeV.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, epsfi

Pomeron in diffractive processes γ∗(Q2)p→ρ0p\gamma^*(Q^2)p\to\rho^0 p and γ∗(Q2)p→γ∗(Q2)p\gamma^*(Q^2)p\to\gamma^*(Q^2) p at large Q^2: the onset of pQCD

We study the reactions $\gamma^*(Q^2)p\to\rho^0 p$ and $\gamma^*(Q^2)p\to\gamma^*(Q^2) p$ at large Q^2 and $W^2/Q^2$ and small momentum transfer, $\kappa^2_\perp$, to the nucleon where the pomeron exchange dominates. At large Q^2 the virtual photon selects a hard $q\bar q$ pair, thus selecting the hard pomeron component (the BFKL pomeron). The amplitudes for both transverse and longitudinal polarizations of the initial photon and outgoing $\rho$-meson (photon) are calculated in the framework of the BFKL pomeron exchange. Our calculations show that one cannot expect the early onset of the pure perturbative regime in the discussed diffractive processes: the small interquark distances, $\rho_{q\bar q} <0.2$ fm, start to dominate not earlier than at $Q^2 \simeq 100 GeV^2, W^2/Q^2 \simeq 10^7$ in $\gamma^*(Q^2)p\to\rho^0 p$ and $Q^2 \simeq 50 GeV^2, W^2/Q^2 \simeq 10^6$ in $\gamma^*(Q^2)p\to\gamma^*(Q^2) p$.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX, epsfig.st

Theoretical study of the N N --> N N pi pi reaction

We have developed a model for the N N --> N N pi pi reaction and evaluated cross sections for the different charged channels. The low energy part of those channels where the pions can be in an isospin zero state is dominated by N* excitation, driven by an isoscalar source recently found experimentally, followed by the decay N* --> N (pi pi, T=0, s-wave). At higher energies, and in channels where the pions are not in T=0, Delta excitation mechanisms become relevant. A rough agreement with the experimental data is obtained in most channels. Repercussions of the present findings for the ABC effect and the p p --> p p pi0 reaction close to threshold are also suggested.Comment: 22 pages, 12 postscripts figures, revised: a more general N* N pi pi Lagrangian is considered, to be published in Nucl. Phys.

Luminosity determination for the pd reaction at 2.14 GeV with WASA-at-COSY

The luminosity for a WASA-at-COSY experiment involving the pd reaction at 2.14 GeV proton-beam energy is determined by the forward pd elastic scattering, which yields an average beam-on-target value of [5.2\pm0.3(stat)\pm0.3(syst)]*10^{30} s^{-1}cm^{-2}. In addition, the forward pd elastic-scattering angular distribution is obtained with four-momentum transfer squared -t between 0.16 (GeV/c)^{2} and 0.78 (GeV/c)^{2} at this beam energy, which is compared with other experimental data and the pd double scattering model.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

The study of the negative pion production in neutron-proton collisions at beam momenta below 1.8 GeV/c

A detailed investigation of the reaction np -> pp\pi^{-} has been carried out using the data obtained with the continuous neutron beam produced by charge exchange scattering of protons off a deuterium target. A partial wave event-by-event based maximum likelihood analysis was applied to determine contributions of different partial waves to the pion production process. The combined analysis of the np -> pp\pi^{-} and pp -> pp\pi^{0} data measured in the same energy region allows us to determine the contribution of isoscalar partial waves (I=0) in the momentum range from 1.1 up to 1.8 GeV/c. The decay of isoscalar partial waves into (^1S_0)_{pp}\pi$ channel provides a good tool for a determination of the pp S-wave scalar scattering length in the final state which was found to be a_{pp}=-7.5\pm 0.3 fm.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Color coherent phenomena on nuclei and the QCD evolution equation

We review the phenomenon of color coherence in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), its implications for hard and soft processes with nuclei, and its experimental manifestations. The relation of factorization theorems in QCD with color coherence phenomena in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) and color coherence phenomena in hard exclusive processes is emphasized. Analyzing numerically the QCD evolution equation for conventional and skewed parton densities in nuclei, we study the onset of generalized color transparency and nuclear shadowing of the sea quark and gluon distributions in nuclei as well as related phenomena. Such novel results as the dependence of the effective coherence length on $Q^2$ and general trends of the QCD evolution are discussed. The limits of the applicability of the QCD evolution equation at small Bjorken $x$ are estimated by comparing the inelastic quark-antiquark- and two gluon-nucleon (nucleus) cross sections, calculated within the DGLAP approximation, with the dynamical boundaries, which follow from the unitarity of the $S$ matrix for purely QCD interactions. We also demonstrate that principles of color coherence play an important role in the processes of soft diffraction off nuclei.Comment: 58 pages, 19 figures, Revtex. Minor editor's changes, final version published in J.Phys. G27 (2001) R23-6