Inclusive production of J/ψJ/\psi meson in proton-proton collisions at BNL RHIC

Inclusive cross sections for $J/\psi$ production in proton-proton collisions were calculated in the $k_t$-factorization approach for the RHIC energy. Several mechanisms were considered, including direct color-singlet mechanism, radiative decays of $\chi_c$ mesons, decays of $\psi'$, open-charm associated production of $J/\psi$ as well as weak decays of B mesons. Different unintegrated gluon distributions from the literature were used. We find that radiative $\chi_c$ decays and direct color-singlet contributions constitute the dominant mechanism of $J/\psi$ production. These process cannot be consistently treated within collinear-factorization approach. The results are compared with recent RHIC data. The new precise data at small transverse momenta impose stringent constraints on UGDFs. Some UGDFs are inconsistent with the new data. The Kwieci\'nski UGDFs give the best description of the data. In order to verify the mechanism suggested here we propose $J/\psi$ -- jet correlation measurement and an independent measurement of $\chi_c$ meson production in $\pi^+ \pi^-$ and/or $K^+ K^-$ decay channels. Finally, we address the issue of \J spin alignment.Comment: 26 pages, 20 figures, the text was slightly modified, the title was modified, more discussion was added, one figure was removed, one was adde

Central exclusive production of scalar \chi_c meson at the Tevatron, RHIC and LHC energies

We calculate several differential distributions for exclusive double diffractive $\chi_c(0^{++})$ production in proton-antiproton collisions at the Tevatron and in proton-proton collisions at RHIC and LHC in terms of unintegrated gluon distributions (UGDFs) within the $k_t$-factorisation approach. The uncertainties of the Khoze-Martin-Ryskin approach are discussed in detail. The $g^* g^* \to \chi_c(0^{++})$ transition vertex is calculated as a function of gluon virtualities applying the standard pNRQCD technique. The off-shell effects are discussed and quantified. They lead to a reduction of the cross section by a factor 2--5, depending on the position in the phase space and UGDFs. Different models of UGDFs are used and the results are shown and discussed. The cross section for diffractive component depends strongly on UGDFs. We calculate also the differential distributions for the $\gamma^* \gamma^* \to \chi_c(0^{++})$ fusion mechanism. The integrated cross section for photon-photon fusion is much smaller than that of diffractive origin. The two components have very different dependence on momentum transfers $t_1, t_2$ in the nucleon lines as well as azimuthal-angle correlations between both outgoing nucleons.Comment: 34 pages, 23 figures, 2 table

THE GLUON DISTRIBUTION AT SMALL x OBTAINED FROM A UNIFIED EVOLUTION EQUATION.

We solve a unified integral equation to obtain the $x, Q_T$ and $Q$ dependence of the gluon distribution of a proton in the small $x$ regime; where $x$ and $Q_T$ are the longitudinal momentum fraction and the transverse momentum of the gluon probed at a scale $Q$. The equation generates a gluon with a steep $x^{- \lambda}$ behaviour, with $\lambda \sim 0.5$, and a $Q_T$ distribution which broadens as $x$ decreases. We compare our solutions with, on the one hand, those that we obtain using the double-leading-logarithm approximation to Altarelli-Parisi evolution and, on the other hand, to those that we determine from the BFKL equation.Comment: LaTeX file with 10 postscript figures (uuencoded