D-instantons and multiparticle production in N=4 SYM

N=4 Super-symmetric Yang-Mills theory (N=4 SYM) in the strong coupling regime has been successfully applied (through the AdS/CFT correspondence) to the description of strongly coupled plasma which is a multiparticle state. Yet, the high-energy scattering in the strong coupling limit of N=4 SYM is purely elastic, so this multiparticle final state can never be produced: this is because in this limit the theory is dual to weak supergravity, and the dominant interaction is the elastic graviton exchange. Here we propose a resolution of this dilemma by considering the contribution of D-instantons in $AdS_5$ bulk space to the scattering amplitude. We argue that D-instantons coupled to dilatons and axions are responsible for multiparticle production in strongly coupled N=4 SYM, and the corresponding cross section increases with energy. We evaluate the intercept and the slope of the corresponding Pomeron trajectory in terms of the typical size of the D-instanton, and argue that the resulting physical picture may resemble the real world.Comment: 22 pp and 11 figures in the eps forma

Gluon saturation effects on J/Psi production in heavy ion collisions

We consider a novel mechanism for J/Psi production in nuclear collisions arising due to the high density of gluons. We calculate the resulting J/Psi production cross section as a function of rapidity and centrality. We evaluate the nuclear modification factor and show that the rapidity distribution of the produced J/Psi's is significantly more narrow in AA collisions due to the gluon saturation effects. Our results indicate that gluon saturation in the colliding nuclei is a significant source of J/Psi suppression that can be disentangled from the quark-gluon plasma effects.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; v2: typos corrected; presentation improve

Hadron multiplicity in pp and AA collisions at LHC from the Color Glass Condensate

We provide quantitative predictions for the rapidity, centrality and energy dependencies of inclusive charged-hadron productions for the forthcoming LHC measurements in nucleus-nucleus collisions based on the idea of gluon saturation in the color-glass condensate framework. Our formulation gives very good descriptions of the first data from the LHC for the inclusive charged-hadron production in proton-proton collisions, the deep inelastic scattering at HERA at small Bjorken-x, and the hadron multiplicities in nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures; v3: minor changes, one reference added, results unchanged, the version to appear in Phys. Rev.

The onset of classical QCD dynamics in relativistic heavy ion collisions

The experimental results on hadron production obtained recently at RHIC offer a new prospective on the energy dependence of the nuclear collision dynamics. In particular, it is possible that parton saturation -- the phenomenon likely providing initial conditions for the multi--particle production at RHIC energies -- may have started to set in central heavy ion collisions already around the highest SPS energy. We examine this scenario, and make predictions based on high density QCD for the forthcoming 22 GeV run at RHIC.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, revte

Production of q bar-q Pairs in Proton-Nucleus Collisions at High Energies

We calculate production of quark-antiquark pairs in high energy proton-nucleus collisions both in the quasi-classical approximation of McLerran-Venugopalan model and including quantum small-$x$ evolution. The resulting production cross section is explicitly expressed in terms of Glauber-Mueller multiple rescatterings in the classical case and in terms of dipole-nucleus scattering amplitude in the quantum evolution case. We generalize the result of one of us (K.T.) beyond the aligned jet configurations. We expand on the earlier results of Blaizot, Gelis and Venugopalan by deriving quark production cross section including quantum evolution corrections in rapidity intervals both between the quarks and the target and between the quarks and the projectile.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures; typos corrected, discussion extende

Classical gluodynamics in curved space--time and the soft Pomeron

QCD at the classical level possesses scale invariance which is broken by quantum effects. This ``dimensional transmutation'' phenomenon can be mathematically described by formulating classical gluodynamics in a curved, conformally flat, space-time with non-vanishing cosmological constant. We study QCD high-energy scattering in this theory. We find that the properties of the scattering amplitude at small momentum transfer are determined by the energy density of vacuum fluctuations. The approach gives rise to the power growth of the total hadron-hadron cross section with energy, i.e. the Pomeron. The intercept of the Pomeron and the multiplicity of produced particles are evaluated. We also speculate about a possible link between conformal anomaly and TeV scale quantum gravity.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Chemical composition of the decaying glasma

The the initial stage of a relativistic heavy ion collision can be described by a classical color field configuration known as the Glasma. The production of quark pairs from this background field is then computed nonperturbatively by numerically solving the Dirac equation in the classical background. The result seems to point towards an early chemical equilibration of the plasma.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, invited talk at Stangeness in Quark Matter 2006 (SQM06), UCLA, March 200

Color mixing in high-energy hadron collisions

The color mixing of mesons propagating in a nucleus is studied with the help of a color-octet Pomeron partner present in the two-gluon model of the Pomeron. For a simple model with four meson-nucleon channels, color mixings are found to be absent for pointlike mesons and very small for small mesons. These results seem to validate the absorption model with two independent color components used in recent analyses of the nuclear absorption of $J/\psi$ mesons produced in nuclear reactions.Comment: 3 journal-style page

Recent Heavy-Flavor results at STAR

We present the recent results on non-photonic electron (NPE) yields from RHIC run8 p+p collisions. The $e/\pi$ ratio as a function of $p_T$ in run8 with a factor of 10 reduction of the inner detector material at STAR is found to be consistent with those results from run3 taking into account the NPE from charm leptonic decay and the difference of photonic electron yield from photon conversion in detector material. \Jpsi spectra in \pp and \cucu collisions at \sNN = 200 GeV with high sampled luminosity \Jpsi spectrum at high-\pT follows $x_T$ scaling, but the scaling is violated at low \pT. $J/\psi$-hadron correlations in \pp collisions are studied to understand the \Jpsi production mechanism at high $p_T$. We observed an absence of charged hadrons accompanying \Jpsi on the near-side, in contrast to the strong correlation peak in the di-hadron correlations. This constrains the $B$-meson contribution and jet fragmentation to inclusive \Jpsi to be ${}^{<}_{\sim}17$. Yields in minimum-bias \cucu collisions are consistent with those in \pp collisions scaled by the underlying binary nucleon-nucleon collisions in the measured \pT range. Other measurements and future projects related to heavy-flavors are discussed.Comment: 8 pages 4 figures, proceedings of the International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter 2008 - Beijing, China, Oct. 6-10, 200