Diffractive Higgs boson photoproduction in peripheral collisions

An alternative process is proposed for the diffractive Higgs boson production in peripheral $pp$ collisions, exploring it through the photon-proton interaction by Double Pomeron Exchange. It is estimated the event rate of the diffractive Higgs production in central rapidity for Tevatron and LHC energies, being of the order of 1 fb, in agreement to the predictions from other diffractive processes. The results are confronted with those obtained from a similar approach of the Durham group.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures, contribution to the proceedings of II Latin American Workshop on High Energy Physics [IILAWHEP], 3-7 Dec. 2007, Sao Miguel das Missoes, Brazi

Single and Central Diffractive Higgs Production at the LHC

The single and central diffractive production of the Standard Model Higgs boson is computed using the diffractive factorization formalism, taking into account a parametrization for the Pomeron structure function provided by the H1 Collaboration. We compute the cross sections at NLO accuracy for the gluon fusion process, since it is the leading mechanism for the Higgs boson production. The gap survival probability is also introduced to include the rescattering corrections due to spectator particles present in the interaction. The diffractive ratios are predicted for proton-proton collisions at the LHC, since the beam luminosity is favorable to the Higgs boson detection. These results provide updated estimations for the fraction of single and central diffractive events in the LHC kinematical regime.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of Diffraction 2010: International Workshop on Diffraction in High Energy Physics, Otranto, Italy, 10-15 Sep 201

Soft and hard QCD dynamics in hadroproduction of charmonium

Both hard and soft QCD dynamics are important in charmonium production, as presented here through a next-to-leading order QCD matrix element calculation combined with the colour evaporation model. Observed $x_F$ and $p_\perp$ distributions of $J/\psi$ in hadroproduction at fixed target and $p\bar{p}$ collider energies are reproduced. Quite similar results can also be obtained in a more phenomenologically useful Monte Carlo event generator where the perturbative production of \ccbar pairs is instead obtained through leading order matrix elements and the parton shower approximation of the higher order processes. The soft dynamics may alternatively be described by the soft colour interaction model, originally introduced in connection with rapidity gaps. We also discuss the relative rates of different charmonium states and introduce an improved model for mapping the continuous \ccbar mass spectrum on the physical charmonium resonances.Comment: 21 pages, 13 eps figure

Soft and hard QCD in charmonium production

Hard and soft QCD dynamics are both important in charmonium hadroproduction, as presented here through a next-to-leading order QCD matrix element calculation combined with the colour evaporation model. Observed $x_F$ and $p_\perp$ distributions of $J/\psi$ in hadroproduction are reproduced. Quite similar results can also be obtained with a Monte Carlo event generator where \ccbar pairs are instead produced through leading order matrix elements and the parton shower approximation of higher order processes. The soft dynamics may alternatively be described by the soft colour interaction model. We also discuss the relative rates of different charmonium states and introduce an improved model for mapping the continuous ccbar mass spectrum on the physical charmonium resonances.Comment: Presented at Pan American Advanced Studies Institute (PASI 2002), Campos do Jord\~ao, Brazil, January 7-18, 200

Aspects of the Unitarized Soft Multipomeron Approach in DIS and Diffraction

We study in detail the main features of the unitarized Regge model (CFKS), recently proposed to describe the small-$Q^2$ domain. It takes into account a two-component description with two types of unitarized contributions: one is the multiple pomeron exchange contribution, interacting with the large dipole configurations, and the other one consists of a unitarized dipole cross section, describing the interaction with the small size dipoles. We analyze the ratio between soft and hard pieces as a function of the virtuality, and also compare the resulting dipole cross section to that from the saturation model. Diffraction dissociation is also considered, showing the scaling violations in diffractive DIS and estimating the corresponding logarithmic slope.Comment: 14 pages, 5 postscript figures. Version to be published in Eur. Phys. J.

Unitarity Corrections to the Proton Structure Functions through the Dipole Picture

We study the dipole picture for the description of the deep inelastic scattering, focusing on the structure functions which are driven directly by the gluon distribution. One performs estimates using the effective dipole cross section given by the Glauber-Mueller approach in QCD, which encodes the corrections due to the unitarity effects associated with the saturation phenomenon. We also address issues about frame invariance of the calculations when analysing the observables.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures. Version to be published in Phys. Rev.

Color Evaporation and Elastic Υ\Upsilon Photoproduction at DESY HERA

The diffractive photoproduction of vector mesons is usually described considering the two-gluon (Pomeron) exchange, non-diagonal parton distributions and the contribution of the real part to the cross section. In this letter we analyze the diffractive photoproduction of the $\Upsilon$ at HERA using an alternative model, the Color Evaporation Model (CEM), where the cross section is simply determined by the boson-gluon cross section and an assumption for the production of the colorless state. We verify that, similarly to the $J/\Psi$ case, the HERA data for this process can be well described by the CEM. Moreover, we propose the analyzes of the ratio $R = \sigma_{\Upsilon} / \sigma_{J/\Psi}$ to discriminate between the distinct approaches.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in PRD (Brief Reports