Probing gluon shadowing with forward photons at RHIC

There is a major need to better constrain nuclear parton densities in order to provide reliable perturbative QCD predictions at the LHC as well as to probe possible non-linear evolution at small values of x. In these proceedings, we discuss how the production of prompt photons at large rapidity in p-p and d-Au collisions at RHIC (sqrt(s_NN)=200 GeV) is sensitive to the nuclear modifications of gluon distributions at x~0.001 and at rather low scales, Q^2~10 GeV^2. The nuclear production ratio, R_dAu=sigma(d+A->gamma+X)/(2A sigma(p+p->gamma X), is computed for isolated prompt photons at NLO using the nDSg nuclear parton densities, in order to assess the visibility of the signal. We also emphasise that the expected counting rates in a year of running at RHIC are large, indicating that R_dAu could be measured with a high statistical accuracy.Comment: 4 pages. Talk given at Quark Matter 2008, Jaipur (India), February 4-10, 2008. Figure 2 replace

gamma* gamma -> pi pi at large Q^2

The QCD analysis of the process gamma* gamma -> pi pi at large Q^2 and small center-of-mass energy allows one to access a new hadronic observable describing the exclusive transition from a q qbar or g g state to a pair of mesons. A fruitful study may be envisaged at existing machines.Comment: 7 pages, to appear in the Proceedings of PHOTON 2000, Ambleside, England, August 200

Exclusive electroproduction and off-diagonal parton distributions

Off-diagonal parton distributions occur in several hard exclusive reactions. They extend the study of hadron structure beyond what can be learned from ordinary distributions and have a particularly rich spin structure. The hard scattering subprocesses in electroproduction of mesons and of real photons satisfy helicity selection rules, which provide powerful tools to test leading-twist dominance at a given value of the hard scale.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX2e. Talk given at the Fourth Workshop on Quantum Chromodynamics, Paris, France, 1-6 June 199

Polarisation in deeply virtual meson production

We discuss two aspects of polarisation in hard exclusive meson production: the leading-twist selection rule for the meson helicity, and the different partial waves of a (pi pi)-pair which may or may not be due to the decay of a rho.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. Talk given at the Workshop on Exclusive and Semiexclusive Processes at High Momentum Transfer, Jefferson Lab, May 1999. Remark added on the transition from two gluons to a pion pai

Gluon radiation by heavy quarks at intermediate energies

Employing scalar QCD we study the gluon emission of heavy quarks created by the interaction with light quarks considered as dynamical scattering centers. We develop approximation formulas for the high energy limit and study when the full calculation reaches this high energy limit. For zero quark masses and in the high energy limit our model reproduces the Gunion-Bertsch results. We justify why scalar QCD represents a good approximation to the full QCD approach for the energy loss of heavy quarks. In the regime of accessible phenomenology we observe that the emission at small transverse momentum (dead cone effect) is less suppressed than originally suggested. We also investigate the influence of a finite gluon mass on the discussed results

Les gerbes atmosphériques et leur contrepartie radio

École thématiqueThe main features of high-energy cosmic-ray air showers are explained before the question of their radio emissions is addressed. Les principales caractéristiques des gerbes atmosphériques issues des rayons cosmiques de grande énergie sont expliquées afin d'aborder le problème de leur émission radioélectrique

Identifying Prognostic Indicators for Electrical Treeing in Solid Insulation through PD Analysis

This paper presents early results from an experimental study of electrical treeing on commercially available pre-formed silicone samples. A needle-plane test arrangement was set up using hypodermic needles. Partial discharge (PD) data was captured using both the IEC 60270 electrical method and radio frequency (RF) sensors, and visual observations are made using a digital microscope. Features of the PD plot that corresponded to electrical tree growth were assessed, evaluating the similarities and differences of both PD measurement techniques. Three univariate phase distributions were extracted from the partial discharge phase-resolved (PRPD) plot and the first four statistical moments were determined. The implications for automated lifetime prediction of insulation samples due to electrical tree development are discussed