Energy Loss versus Shadowing in the Drell-Yan Reaction on Nuclei

We present a new analysis of the E772 and E866 experiments on the nuclear dependence of Drell-Yan (DY) lepton pair production resulting from the bombardment of $^2H$, Be, C, Ca, Fe, and W targets by 800 GeV/c protons at Fermilab. We employ a light-cone formulation of the DY reaction in the rest frame of the nucleus, where the dimuons detected at small values of Bjorken x_2 << 1 may be considered to originate from the decay of a heavy photon radiated from an incident quark in a bremsstrahlung process. We infer the energy loss of the quark by examining the suppression of the nuclear-dependent DY ratios seen as a function of projectile momentum fraction x_1 and dimuon mass M. Shadowing, which also leads to nuclear suppression of dimuons, is calculated within the same approach employing the results of phenomenological fits to deep inelastic scattering data from HERA. The analysis yields -dE/dz =2.73 +/- 0.37 +/- 0.5 GeV/fm for the rate of quark energy loss per unit path length, a value consistent with theoretical expectations including the effects of the inelastic interaction of the incident proton at the surface of the nucleus. This is the first observation of a nonzero energy loss effect in such experiments.Comment: 43 pages including 17 figure

Time Evolution of Jets and Perturbative Color Neutralization

In-medium production of leading hadrons in hard reactions, carrying the main fraction of the jet momentum, involves two stages: (i) the parton originated from the hard process propagates through the medium radiating gluons due to the initial hard collision, as well as to multiple interactions in the medium; (ii) perturbative color neutralization, e.g. picking up an anti-colored parton produced perturbatively, followed by evolution and attenuation of the (pre)hadron in the medium. The color neutralization (or production) length for leading hadrons is controlled by coherence, energy conservation and Sudakov suppression. The pT-broadening is a sensitive and model independent probe for the production length. The color neutralization time is expected to shrink with rising hard scale. In particular, we found a very fast energy dissipation by a highly virtual parton: half of the jet energy is radiated during the first Fermi. Energy conservation makes the production of leading hadrons at longer times difficult.Comment: Based on talk given by B.K. at the Fifth International Conference on Perspectives in Hadronic Physics, Trieste, May 200

The role of IL-6 in skin fibrosis and cutaneous wound healing

The timely resolution of wound healing is critical for restoring the skin as a protective barrier. The switch from a proinflammatory to a reparative microenvironment must be tightly regulated. Interleukin (IL)-6 is a key modulator of the inflammatory and reparative process: it is involved in the differentiation, activation, and proliferation of leukocytes, endothelial cells, keratinocytes, and fibroblasts. This review examines the role of IL-6 in the healing of cutaneous wounds, and how dysregulation of IL-6 signaling can lead to either fibrosis or a failure to heal. The role of an IL-6/TGF-β feedback loop is discussed in the context of fibrogenesis, while IL-6 expression and responses in advanced age, diabetes, and obesity is outlined regarding the development of chronic wounds. Current research on therapies that modulate IL-6 is explored. Here, we consider IL-6′s diverse impact on cutaneous wound healing

Nuclear effects in the Drell-Yan process at very high energies

We study Drell-Yan (DY) dilepton production in proton(deuterium)-nucleus and in nucleus-nucleus collisions within the light-cone color dipole formalism. This approach is especially suitable for predicting nuclear effects in the DY cross section for heavy ion collisions, as it provides the impact parameter dependence of nuclear shadowing and transverse momentum broadening, quantities that are not available from the standard parton model. For p(D)+A collisions we calculate nuclear shadowing and investigate nuclear modification of the DY transverse momentum distribution at RHIC and LHC for kinematics corresponding to coherence length much longer than the nuclear size. Calculations are performed separately for transversely and longitudinally polarized DY photons, and predictions are presented for the dilepton angular distribution. Furthermore, we calculate nuclear broadening of the mean transverse momentum squared of DY dileptons as function of the nuclear mass number and energy. We also predict nuclear effects for the cross section of the DY process in heavy ion collisions. We found a substantial nuclear shadowing for valence quarks, stronger than for the sea.Comment: 46 pages, 18 figures, title changed and some discussion added, accepted for publication in PR

Glue drops inside hadrons

We present experimental evidences for the existence of a semi-hard scale in light hadrons. This includes the suppression of gluon radiation that is seen in high mass hadron diffraction; the weak energy dependence of hadronic total cross sections; the small value of the Pomeron trajectory slope measured in photoproduction of J/Psi; the weakness of gluon shadowing in nuclei; shortage of gluons in the proton revealed by an unusual behavior of the proton structure function in the soft limit, and the enhanced intrinsic transverse momentum of quarks and gluons, which considerably exceeds the inverse hadronic size. All these observations suggest that gluons in hadrons are located within spots of a small size relative to the confinement radius.Comment: Based on talks given by B.P at the Fifth International Conference on Perspectives In Hadronic Physics, Trieste, May 2006, and by B.K. at the Workshop on Future Prospects in QCD at High Energies, Brookhaven, Jly 200

Puzzles of J/Psi production off nuclei

Nuclear effects for J/Psi production in pA collisions are controlled by the coherence and color transparency effects. Color transparency onsets when the time of formation of the charmonium wave function becomes longer than the inter-nucleon spacing. In this energy regime the effective break-up cross section for a c-cbar dipole depends on energy and nuclear path length, and agrees well with data from fixed target experiments, both in magnitude and energy dependence. At higher energies of RHIC and LHC coherence in c-cbar pair production leads to charm quark shadowing which is a complement to the high twist break up cross section. These two effects explain well with no adjusted parameters the magnitude and rapidity dependence of nuclear suppression of J/Psi observed at RHIC in dAu collisions, while the contribution of leading twist gluon shadowing is found to be vanishingly small. A novel mechanism of double color filtering for c-cbar dipoles makes nuclei significantly more transparent in AA compared to pA collisions. This is one of the mechanisms which make impossible a model independent "data driven" extrapolation from pA to AA. This effect also explains the enhancement of nuclear suppression observed at forward rapidities in AA collisions at RHIC, what hardly can be related to the produced dense medium. J/Psi is found to be a clean and sensitive tool measuring the transport coefficient characterizing the dense matter created in AA collisions. RHIC data for pT dependence of J/Psi production in nuclear collisions are well explained with the low value of the transport coefficient q_0-hat<0.5 GeV^2/fm.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, Invited talk at the Workshop "Saturation, the Color Glass Condensate and Glasma: What Have we Learned from RHIC?", BNL, May 10-12, 201

Parton model versus color dipole formulation of the Drell-Yan process

In the kinematical region where the center of mass energy is much larger than all other scales, the Drell-Yan process can be formulated in the target rest frame in terms of the same color dipole cross section as low Bjorken-x deep inelastic scattering. Since the mechanisms for heavy dilepton production appear very different in the dipole approach and in the conventional parton model, one may wonder whether these two formulations really represent the same physics. We perform a comparison of numerical calculations in the color dipole approach with calculations in the next-to-leading order parton model. For proton-proton scattering, the results are very similar at low x_2 from fixed target to RHIC energies, confirming the close connection between these two very different approaches. We also compare the transverse momentum distributions of Drell-Yan dileptons predicted in both formulations. The range of applicability of the dipole formulation and the impact of future Drell-Yan data from RHIC for determining the color dipole cross section are discussed. A detailed derivation of the dipole formulation of the Drell-Yan process is also included.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

Nuclear Hadronization: Within or Without?

Nuclei are unique analyzers for the early stage of the space-time development of hadronization. DIS at medium energies is especially suitable for this task being sensitive to hadronization dynamics, since the production length is comparable with the nuclear size. This was the driving motivation to propose measurements at HERMES using nuclear targets, and to provide predictions based on a pQCD model of hadronization [1]. Now when the first results of the experiment are released [2,3], one can compare the predictions with the data. The model successfully describes with no adjustment the nuclear effects for various energies, zh, pT, and Q2, for different flavors and different nuclei. It turns out that the main source of nuclear suppression of the hadron production rate is attenuation of colorless pre-hadrons in the medium. An alternative model [4] is based upon an ad hoc assumption that the colorless pre-hadron is produced outside the nucleus. This model has apparent problems attempting to explain certain features of the results from HERMES. A good understanding of the hadronization dynamics is important for proper interpretation of the strong suppression of high-pT hadrons observed in heavy ion collisions at RHIC. We demonstrate that the production length is even shorter in this case and keeps contracting with rising pT.Comment: Latex 34 p. Based on talks given by B.Z.K. at the Fourth International Conference on Perspectives in Hadronic Physics, Trieste, Italy, May 12-16, 2003; and at the EuroConference on Hadron Structure Viewed with Electromagnetic Probes, Santorini, Greece, October 7-12, 200

Systemic long-term metabolic effects of acute non-severe paediatric burn injury

A growing body of evidence supports the concept of a systemic response to non-severe thermal trauma. This provokes an immunosuppressed state that predisposes paediatric patients to poor recovery and increased risk of secondary morbidity. In this study, to understand the long-term systemic effects of non-severe burns in children, targeted mass spectrometry assays for biogenic amines and tryptophan metabolites were performed on plasma collected from child burn patients at least three years post injury and compared to age and sex matched non-burn (healthy) controls. A panel of 12 metabolites, including urea cycle intermediates, aromatic amino acids and quinolinic acid were present in significantly higher concentrations in children with previous burn injury. Correlation analysis of metabolite levels to previously measured cytokine levels indicated the presence of multiple cytokine-metabolite associations in the burn injury participants that were absent from the healthy controls. These data suggest that there is a sustained immunometabolic imprint of non-severe burn trauma, potentially linked to long-term immune changes that may contribute to the poor long-term health outcomes observed in children after burn injury

Space-time evolution of hadronization

Beside its intrinsic interest for the insights it can give into color confinement, knowledge of the space-time evolution of hadronization is very important for correctly interpreting jet-quenching data in heavy ion collisions and extracting the properties of the produced medium. On the experimental side, the cleanest environment to study the space-time evolution of hadronization is semi-inclusive Deeply Inelastic Scattering on nuclear targets. On the theoretical side, 2 frameworks are presently competing to explain the observed attenuation of hadron production: quark energy loss (with hadron formation outside the nucleus) and nuclear absorption (with hadronization starting inside the nucleus). I discuss recent observables and ideas which will help to distinguish these 2 mechanisms and to measure the time scales of the hadronization process.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Based on talks given at "Hot Quarks 2006", Villasimius, Italy, May 15-20, 2006, and at the "XLIV internataional winter meeting on nuclear physics", Bormio, Italy, Jan 29 - Feb 5, 2006. To appear in Eur.Phys.J.