Investigating the high energy QCD approaches for prompt photon production at the LHC

We investigate the rapidity and transverse momentum distributions of the prompt photon production at the CERN LHC energies considering the current perturbative QCD approaches for this scattering process. Namely, we compare the predictions from the usual NLO pQCD calculations to the the color dipole formalism, using distinct dipole cross sections. Special attention is paid to parton saturation models at high energies, which are expected to be important at the forward rapidities in pp collisions at the LHC.Comment: Contribution to the proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Hard and Electro-Magnetic Probes of High-Energy Nuclear Collisions (Hard Probes 2008), 8-14 June 2008, Illa da Toxa (Galicia-Spain). Talk presented by M.V.T. Machad

Using dileptons to probe the Color Glass Condensate

The rapidity and transverse momentum dependence of the nuclear modification ratio for dilepton production at RHIC and LHC is presented, calculated in the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) framework. The transverse momentum ratio is compared for two distinct dilepton mass values and a suppression of the Cronin peak is verified even for large mass. The nuclear modification ratio suppression in the dilepton rapidity spectra, as obtained experimentally for hadrons at RHIC, is verified for LHC energies at large transverse momentum, although not present at RHIC energies. The ratio between LHC and RHIC nuclear modification ratios is evaluated in the CGC, showing the large saturation effects at LHC compared with the RHIC results. These results consolidate the dilepton as a most suitable observable to investigate the QCD high density approaches.Comment: 5 pages, version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Non-linear QCD dynamics and exclusive production in epep collisions

The exclusive processes in electron-proton ($ep$) interactions are an important tool to investigate the QCD dynamics at high energies as they are in general driven by the gluon content of proton which is strongly subject to parton saturation effects. In this paper we compute the cross sections for the exclusive vector meson production as well as the deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) relying on the color dipole approach and considering the numerical solution of the Balitsky-Kovchegov equation including running coupling corrections. We show that the small-$x$ evolution given by this evolution equation is able to describe the DESY-HERA data and is relevant for the physics of the exclusive observables in future electron-proton colliders and in photoproduction processes to be measured in coherent interactions at the LHC.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Non-linear QCD dynamics in two-photon interactions at high energies

Perturbative QCD predicts that the growth of the gluon density at high energies should saturate, forming a Color Glass Condensate (CGC), which is described in mean field approximation by the Balitsky-Kovchegov (BK) equation. In this paper we study the $\gamma \gamma$ interactions at high energies and estimate the main observables which will be probed at future linear colliders using the color dipole picture. We discuss in detail the dipole - dipole cross section and propose a new relation between this quantity and the dipole scattering amplitude. The total $\gamma \gamma$, $\gamma^{*} \gamma^{*}$ cross-sections and the real photon structure function $F_2^{\gamma}(x,Q^2)$ are calculated using the recent solution of the BK equation with running coupling constant and the predictions are compared with those obtained using phenomenological models for the dipole-dipole cross section and scattering amplitude. We demonstrate that these models are able to describe the LEP data at high energies, but predict a very different behavior for the observables at higher energies. Therefore we conclude that the study of $\gamma \gamma$ interactions can be useful to constrain the QCD dynamics.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. Version to be published in European Physical Journal