nPDF constraints from the Large Hadron Electron Collider

An updated analysis regarding the expected nuclear PDF constraints from the future Large Hadron Electron Collider (LHeC) experiment is presented. The new study is based on a more flexible small-$x$ parametrization which provides less biased uncertainty estimates in the region where there are currently no data constraints. The effect of the LHeC is quantified by directly including a sample of pseudodata according to the expected precision of this planned experiment. As a result, a significant reduction of the small-$x$ uncertainties in sea quarks and gluons is observed.Comment: Talk presented at DIS2016 conference, April 11 - April 15, 2016, DESY, Hamburg, German

Kinematic biases on centrality selection of jet events in pPb collisions at the LHC

Centrality selection has been observed to have a large effect on jet observables in pPb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, stronger than that predicted by the nuclear modification of parton densities. We study to which extent simple considerations of energy-momentum conservation between the hard process and the underlying event affect jets observables in such collisions. We develop a simplistic approach that considers first the production of jets in a pp collision as described by PYTHIA. From each pp collision, the value of the energy of the parton from the proton participating in the hard scattering is extracted. Then, the underlying event is generated simulating a pPb collision through HIJING, but with the energy of the proton decreased according to the value extracted in the previous step, and both collisions are superimposed. This model is able to capture the bulk of the centrality effect for central to semicentral collisions, for the two available sets of data: dijets from the CMS Collaboration and single jets from the ATLAS Collaboration. As expected, the model fails for peripheral collisions where very few nucleons from Pb participate

Medium-Induced Gluon Radiation off Massive Quarks Fills the Dead Cone

We calculate the transverse momentum dependence of the medium-induced gluon energy distribution radiated off massive quarks in spatially extended QCD matter. In the absence of a medium, the distribution shows a characteristic mass-dependent depletion of the gluon radiation for angles smaller than m/E, the so-called dead cone effect. Medium-modifications of this spectrum are calculated as a function of quark mass, initial quark energy, in-medium pathlength and density. Generically, medium-induced gluon radiation is found to fill the dead cone, but it is reduced at large gluon energies compared to the radiation off light quarks. We quantify the resulting mass-dependence for momentum-averaged quantities (gluon energy distribution and average parton energy loss), compare it to simple approximation schemes and discuss its observable consequences for nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and LHC. In particular, our analysis does not favor the complete disappearance of energy loss effects from leading open charm spectra at RHIC.Comment: 27 pages LaTeX, 15 eps-figure

Bayesian reweighting of nuclear PDFs and constraints from proton-lead collisions at the LHC

New hard-scattering measurements from the LHC proton-lead run have the potential to provide important constraints on the nuclear parton distributions and thus contributing to a better understanding of the initial state in heavy ion collisions. In order to quantify these constraints, as well as to assess the compatibility with available nuclear data from fixed target experiments and from RHIC, the traditional strategy is to perform a global fit of nuclear PDFs. This procedure is however time consuming and technically challenging, and moreover can only be performed by the PDF fitters themselves. In the case of proton PDFs, an alternative approach has been suggested that uses Bayesian inference to propagate the effects of new data into the PDFs without the need of refitting. In this work, we apply this reweighting procedure to study the impact on nuclear PDFs of low-mass Drell-Yan and single-inclusive hadroproduction pseudo-data from proton-lead collisions at the LHC as representative examples. In the hadroproduction case, in addition we assess the possibility of discriminating between the DGLAP and CGC production frameworks. We find that the LHC proton-lead data could lead to a substantial reduction of the uncertainties on nuclear PDFs, in particular for the small-x gluon PDF where uncertainties could decrease by up to a factor two. The Monte Carlo replicas of EPS09 used in the analysis are released as a public code for general use. It can be directly used, in particular, by the experimental collaborations to check, in a straightforward manner, the degree of compatibility of the new data with the global nPDF analyses.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure

Inclusive diffraction in future electron-proton and electron-ion colliders

We analyse the possibilities for the study of inclusive diffraction offered by future electron--proton/nucleus colliders in the TeV regime, the Large Hadron-electron Collider as an upgrade of the HL-LHC and the Future Circular Collider in electron-hadron mode. Compared to $ep$ collisions at HERA, we find an extension of the available kinematic range in $x$ by a factor of order $20$ and of the maximum $Q^2$ by a factor of order $100$ for LHeC, while the FCC version would extend the coverage by a further order of magnitude both in $x$ and $Q^2$. This translates into a range of available momentum fraction of the diffractive exchange with respect to the hadron ($\xi$), down to $10^{-4}-10^{-5}$ for a wide range of the momentum fraction of the parton with respect to the diffractive exchange ($\beta$). Using the same framework and methodology employed in previous studies at HERA, considering only the experimental uncertainties and not those stemming from the functional form of the initial conditions or other ones of theoretical origin, and under very conservative assumptions for the luminosities and systematic errors, we find an improvement in the extraction of diffractive parton densities from fits to reduced cross sections for inclusive coherent diffraction in $ep$ by about an order of magnitude. For $eA$, we also perform the simulations for the Electron Ion Collider. We find that an extraction of the currently unmeasured nuclear diffractive parton densities is possible with similar accuracy to that in $ep$.Comment: 24 pages, 16 figure

Central rapidity densities of charged particles at RHIC and LHC

Predictions on central rapidity densities of charged particles at energies ofthe Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider, for centralcollisions between the largest nuclei that will be available at theseaccelerators, are reviewed. Differences among the results of the existingmodels are discussed in relation with their underlying physical basis and withthe possibilities to discriminate them