QCD and strongly coupled gauge theories : challenges and perspectives

We highlight the progress, current status, and open challenges of QCD-driven physics, in theory and in experiment. We discuss how the strong interaction is intimately connected to a broad sweep of physical problems, in settings ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to strongly coupled, complex systems in particle and condensed-matter physics, as well as to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. We also discuss how success in describing the strong interaction impacts other fields, and, in turn, how such subjects can impact studies of the strong interaction. In the course of the work we offer a perspective on the many research streams which flow into and out of QCD, as well as a vision for future developments.Peer reviewe

Generalized universality of definite rank gluon transverse momentum dependent correlators

Transverse momentum dependent (TMD) parton correlators describing the partonic structure of hadrons contain gauge links, required by color gauge invariance. The required gauge links enter in the matrix elements that contain the parton fields and depend on the color flow in the hard process. The correlators are expanded in terms of transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions, referred to as TMD PDFs, or in short TMDs. In this paper, we introduce gluon TMDs of definite rank, by making an expansion of the TMD gluon correlator with the help of irreducible tensors built from the transverse momenta. The process dependence is isolated in gauge-link-dependent gluonic pole factors multiplying the TMDs. It is important to account for the different possibilities in the color structure within the matrix elements, leading to multiple TMDs at a given rank. In this way we are able to write the leading tree-level result for a hard process in terms of process-dependent gluon correlators which are expressed in a finite set of universal TMDs. We tabulate the gluonic pole factors for various gauge links, among them those that are relevant for 2 -> 2 processes

Linear polarization of gluons and photons in unpolarized collider experiments

<p>We study azimuthal asymmetries in heavy quark pair production in unpolarized electron-proton and proton-proton collisions, where the asymmetries originate from the linear polarization of gluons inside unpolarized hadrons. We provide cross section expressions and study the maximal asymmetries allowed by positivity, for both charm and bottom quark pair production. The upper bounds on the asymmetries are shown to be very large depending on the transverse momentum of the heavy quarks, which is promising especially for their measurements at a possible future Electron-Ion Collider or a Large Hadron electron Collider. We also study the analogous processes and asymmetries in muon pair production as a means to probe linearly polarized photons inside unpolarized protons. For increasing invariant mass of the muon pair the asymmetries become very similar to the heavy quark pair ones. Finally, we discuss the process dependence of the results that arises due to differences in color flow and address the problem with factorization in case of proton-proton collisions.</p>