It has been shown that AdS/CFT calculations can reproduce certain exclusive
2->2 cross sections in QCD at high energy, both for near-forward and for
fixed-angle scattering. In this paper, we extend prior treatments by using
AdS/CFT to calculate the inclusive single-particle production cross section in
QCD at high center-of-mass energy. We find that conformal invariance in the UV
restricts the cross section to have a characteristic power-law falloff in the
transverse momentum of the produced particle, with the exponent given by twice
the conformal dimension of the produced particle, independent of incoming
particle types. We conclude by comparing our findings to recent LHC
experimental data from ATLAS and ALICE, and find good agreement.Comment: JHEP version. Discussion, appendix, figures, and tables added.
Conclusions and key results unchange