Testing nuclear parton distributions with pA collisions at the LHC

Global perturbative QCD analyses, based on large data sets from electron-proton and hadron collider experiments, provide tight constraints on the parton distribution function (PDF) in the proton. The extension of these analyses to nuclear parton distributions (nPDF) has attracted much interest in recent years. nPDFs are needed as benchmarks for the characterization of hot QCD matter in nucleus-nucleus collisions, and attract further interest since they may show novel signatures of non-linear density-dependent QCD evolution. However, it is not known from first principles whether the factorization of long-range phenomena into process-independent parton distribution, which underlies global PDF extractions for the proton, extends to nuclear effects. As a consequence, assessing the reliability of nPDFs for benchmark calculations goes beyond testing the numerical accuracy of their extraction and requires phenomenological tests of the factorization assumption. Here we argue that a proton-nucleus collision program at the LHC would provide a set of measurements allowing for unprecedented tests of the factorization assumption underlying global nPDF fits.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Jet Fragmentation Function Moments in Heavy Ion Collisions

The nature of a jet's fragmentation in heavy-ion collisions has the potential to cast light on the mechanism of jet quenching. However the presence of the huge underlying event complicates the reconstruction of the jet fragmentation function as a function of the momentum fraction z of hadrons in the jet. Here we propose the use of moments of the fragmentation function. These quantities appear to be as sensitive to quenching modifications as the fragmentation function directly in z. We show that they are amenable to background subtraction using the same jet-area based techniques proposed in the past for jet p_t's. Furthermore, complications due to correlations between background-fluctuation contributions to the jet's p_t and to its particle content are easily corrected for.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

AAMQS: a non-linear QCD description of new HERA data at small-x

We present a global analysis of available data on inclusive structure functions measured in electron-proton scattering at small values of Bjorken-x, including the latest data from the combined HERA analysis on reduced cross sections. Our approach relies on the dipole formulation of DIS together with the use of the non-linear running coupling BK equation for the description of the small-x dynamics. With the resulting parametrization we are able to describe the latest FL data measured by the H1 collaboration. Further, we discuss the kinematical domain where significant deviations from NLO-DGLAP should be expected and the ability of non-linnear physics to account for such deviations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of Quark Matter 2011, Annecy, Franc

A predictive phenomenological tool at small Bjorken-x

We present the results from global fits of inclusive DIS experimental data using the Balitsky-Kovchegov equation with running coupling.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, prepared for the Proceedings of 'Hot Quarks 2010

Testing collinear factorization and nuclear parton distributions with pA collisions at the LHC

Global perturbative QCD analyses, based on large data sets from electron-proton and hadron collider experiments, provide tight constraints on the parton distribution function (PDF) in the proton. The extension of these analyses to nuclear parton distributions (nPDF) has attracted much interest in recent years. nPDFs are needed as benchmarks for the characterization of hot QCD matter in nucleus-nucleus collisions, and attract further interest since they may show novel signatures of non- linear density-dependent QCD evolution. However, it is not known from first principles whether the factorization of long-range phenomena into process-independent parton distribution, which underlies global PDF extractions for the proton, extends to nuclear effects. As a consequence, assessing the reliability of nPDFs for benchmark calculations goes beyond testing the numerical accuracy of their extraction and requires phenomenological tests of the factorization assumption. Here we argue that a proton-nucleus collision program at the LHC would provide a set of measurements allowing for unprecedented tests of the factorization assumption underlying global nPDF fits.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Reaction-diffusion processes in zero transverse dimensions as toy models for high-energy QCD

We examine numerically different zero-dimensional reaction-diffusion processes as candidate toy models for high-energy QCD evolution. Of the models examined -- Reggeon Field Theory, Directed Percolation and Reversible Processes -- only the latter shows the behaviour commonly expected, namely an increase of the scattering amplitude with increasing rapidity. Further, we find that increasing recombination terms, quantum loops and the heuristic inclusion of a running of the couplings, generically slow down the evolution.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Medium dependence of multiplicity distributions in MLLA

We study the modification of the multiplicity distributions in MLLA due to the presence of a QCD medium. The medium is introduced though a multiplicative constant ($f_{med}$) in the soft infrared parts of the kernels of QCD evolution equations. Using the asymptotic ansatz for quark and gluons mean multiplicities $=e^{\gamma y}$ and $=r^{-1}e^{\gamma y}$ respectively, we study two cases: fixed $\gamma$ as previously considered in the literature, and fixed $\alpha_s$. We find opposite behaviors of the dispersion of the multiplicity distributions with increasing $f_{med}$ in both cases. For fixed $\gamma$ the dispersion decreases, while for fixed $\alpha_s$ it increases.Comment: LaTeX, 9 pages, 4 eps figures; proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes in High-Energy Nuclear Collisions - Hard Probes 2008 (Illa de A Toxa, Spain, June 8th-14th 2008

Out of Medium Fragmentation from Long-Lived Jet Showers

We study the time structure of vacuum jet evolution via a simple uncertainty principle estimate in the kinematic range explored by current heavy ion collisions at the LHC. We observe that a large fraction of the partonic splittings occur at large times, of the order of several fm. We compare the time distribution of vacuum splittings with the distribution of path lengths traversed by jets in a heavy ion collision. We find that if no medium induced modification of the jet dynamics were present, a very large fraction (larger than 80% for inclusive jets) of the jet splittings would occur outside of the medium. We confront this observation with current available data on jet properties in heavy ion collisions and discuss its implications for the dynamics of jet-medium interactions.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Análisis de las actitudes de los estudiantes hacia el aprendizaje colaborativo y en línea

El presente proyecto aborda dos aspectos muy importantes y estrechamente ligados a la adquisición de competencias básicas de cualquier titulación de grado actual y altamente demandadas por los empleadores: la adquisición de habilidades para desarrollar trabajo colaborativo y la capacidad de desarrollar actividades de aprendizaje en línea. Estas últimas tienen una doble función. Por una parte, deben preparar a los estudiantes para ser capaces de gestionar su trabajo, de manera autónoma, con vistas al posible desarrollo de trabajo no presencial, cada vez más importante en muchos entornos laborales. Por otra parte, deber permitirles adquirir las habilidades necesarias para continuar se formación a lo largo de su vida (LLL, Long Life Learning) a través de entornos más informales, pero no por ello menos efectivos, como puede ser el caso de los Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC), ofertados cada vez por más instituciones, con cursos de calidad, impartidos por grandes expertos y con posibilidades de certificación del trabajo realizado

Testing factorization in pA collisions at the LHC

Global perturbative QCD analyses, based on large data sets from e-p and hadron collider experiments, provide tight constraints on the parton distribution function (PDF) in the proton. The extension of these analyses to nuclear parton distributions (nPDF) has attracted much interest in recent years. nPDFs are needed as benchmarks for the characterization of hot QCD matter in nucleus-nucleus collisions, and attract further interest since they may show novel signatures of non-linear density-dependent QCD evolution. However, it is not known from first principles whether the factorization of long-range phenomena into process-independent parton distribution, which underlies global PDF extractions for the proton, extends to nuclear effects. As a consequence, assessing the reliability of nPDFs for benchmark calculations goes beyond testing the numerical accuracy of their extraction and requires phenomenological tests of the factorization assumption. Here we argue that a proton-nucleus collision programme at the LHC, including a rapidity scan, would provide a set of measurements allowing for unprecedented tests of the factorization assumption underlying global nPDF fits