We study the evolution and saturation of the gluon distribution function in the quark-gluon plasma as probed by a propagating parton and its effect on the computation of jet quenching or transport parameter $\hat{q}$. For thermal partons, the saturation scale $Q^2_s$ is found to be proportional to the Debye screening mass $μ_D^2$. For hard probes, evolution at small $x=Q^2_s/6ET$ leads to jet energy dependence of $\hat{q}$. We study this dependence for both a conformal gauge theory in weak and strong coupling limit and for (pure gluon) QCD. The energy dependence can be used to extract the shear viscosity $η$ of the medium since $η$ can be related to the transport parameter for thermal partons in a transport description. We also derive upper bounds on the transport parameter for both energetic and thermal partons. The later leads to a lower bound on shear viscosity-to-entropy density ratio which is consistent with the conjectured lower bound $η/s\geq 1/4π$. We also discuss the implications on the study of jet quenching at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the CERN Large Hadron Collider and the bulk properties of the dense matter.
We discuss the recent claim that hadron multiplicities measured at RHIC energies are directly described in terms of gluon degrees of freedom fixed from the initial conditions of central heavy ion collisions. The argument is based on the parton saturation scenario expected to be valid at high parton densities and on the assumption of conserved gluon number. Alternatively we conjecture that "bottom-up" equilibration before hadronization modifies this picture, due to nonconservation of the number of gluons.
An addendum to our previous papers in Phys. Lett. B539 (2002) 46 and Phys. Lett. B502 (2001) 51, contributed to the CERN meeting "First data from the LHC heavy ion run", March 4, 2011
A calculation of the thermal quark propagator is presented taking the gluon condensate above the critical temperature into account. The quark dispersion relation following from this propagator is derived.
The incorporation of running $α_s$ for the gluon emission vertex in calculations of radiative parton energy loss in a quark-gluon plasma is discussed. It is argued that the virtuality scale for running $α_s$ for induced gluon emission is determined by the square of the transverse momentum of the emitted gluon rather than by the square of the invariant mass of the final two-parton state often used in the literature.
We modified the gluon saturation model by rescaling the momentum fraction according to saturation momentum and introduced the Cooper-Frye hydrodynamic evolution to systematically study the pseudo-rapidity distributions of final charged hadrons at different energies and different centralities for Au-Au collisions in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The features of both gluon saturation and hydrodynamic evolution at different energies and different centralities for Au-Au collisions are investigated in this paper.
Partons are defined as the quanta in a Fock space description of a hadron. Gluon saturation is described in the Weizsäcker-Williams approximation for a large nucleus. The elements of DGLAP and BFKL evolution are given with the BFKL equation derived in a large-$N_c$ dipole formalism. A more general discussion of saturation is given in terms of a dipole scattering on a nucleon or nucleus. Possible evidence for saturation at HERA is discussed.
We estimate the energy loss distribution and investigate the quenching of hadron spectra in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions due to the collisional energy loss of energetic partons from hard parton collisions in the initial stage.
Dynamical screening in the magnetic part of the one-gluon exchange interaction is included in the study of radiative energy loss of a fast parton propagating inside a quark-gluon plasma. As a result the final radiative energy loss is about twice as large as when only the electric part of one-gluon exchange interaction is considered. A non-perturbative magnetic screening mass is also used in the estimate of the mean-free-path of parton scattering in a hot QCD matter.
I derive the space-time distribution of energy and momentum deposited by a fast parton traversing a perturbative quark-gluon plasma by considering the fast parton as the source of an external color field interacting with the medium. I include the medium's response to screen the fast parton's color field by incorporating dielectric functions and compare to the unscreened result.
We study saturation effects in the production of dijets in p-p and p-Pb collisions using the framework of high energy factorization. We focus on central-forward jet configurations, which allow for probing gluon density at low longitudinal momentum fraction. We find significant suppression of the central-forward jet decorrelations in p-Pb compared to p-p, which we attribute to saturation of gluon density in nuclei.
We investigate the radiative break-up of a highly energetic quark or gluon in a high-temperature QCD plasma. Within an inertial range of momenta $T \ll ω\ll E$, where $E$ denotes the energy of the original hard parton (jet) and $T$ the temperature of of the medium, we find that, as a result of the turbulent nature of the underlying parton cascade, the quark to gluon ratio of the soft fragments tends to a universal constant value that is independent of the initial conditions. We discuss implications of this result to jet quenching physics and the problem of thermalization of the quark-gluon pla…
The high parton density regime of the Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), where the physics of parton saturation is expected to be dominant, is briefly discussed. Some phenomenological aspects of saturation are described, mainly focusing on possible signatures of the non-linear QCD dynamics in the heavy quark production in electron-proton/nucleus collisions. Implications of these effects in the heavy quark production in ultraperipheral heavy-ion collisions are also presented.
Deeply inelastic scattering of electrons off nuclei can determine whether parton distributions saturate at HERA energies. If so, this phenomenon will also tell us a great deal about how particles are produced, and whether they equilibrate, in high energy nuclear collisions.
Large angle gluon radiations induced by multiple parton scatterings contribute to dijet production in deeply inelastic scattering off a large nucleus at the Electron-Ion Collider. Within the generalized high-twist approach to multiple parton scattering, such contributions at the leading order in perturbative QCD and large Bjorken momentum fraction $x_B$ can be expressed as a convolution of the multiple parton scattering amplitudes and the transverse momentum dependent (TMD) two-parton correlation matrix elements. We study this medium-induced dijet spectrum and its azimuthal angle correlation u…
We calculate the total energy deposited into the medium per unit length by fast partons traversing a quark-gluon plasma. The medium excitation due to collisions is taken to be given by the well known expression for the collisional drag force. The radiative energy loss of the parton contributes to the energy deposition because each radiated gluon acts as an additional source of collisional energy loss in the medium. We derive a differential equation which governs how the spectrum of radiated gluons is modified when this energy loss is taken into account. This modified spectrum is then used to c…
The impact parameter dependent gluon distribution of the proton xG(x,Q^2,b) is investigated in a loop-loop correlation model that respects the S-matrix unitarity condition in impact parameter space. We find low-x saturation of G(x,Q^2,b) as a manifestation of S-matrix unitarity. The integrated gluon distribution xG(x,Q^2) does not saturate because of the growth of the effective proton radius with decreasing x.
We calculate the cross section of a single inclusive gluon production in deep inelastic scattering at very high energies in the saturation regime, where the parton densities inside hadrons and nuclei are large and the evolution of structure functions with energy is nonlinear. The expression we obtain for the inclusive gluon production cross section is generated by this nonlinear evolution. We analyze the rapidity distribution of the produced gluons as well as their transverse momentum spectrum given by the derived expression for the inclusive cross section. We propose an ansatz for the multipl…
Exploiting recently obtained analytic solutions of classical Yang-Mills equations for higher order perturbations in the field of the dilute object (proton), we derive the complete first saturation correction to the single inclusive semi-hard gluon production in high energy proton-nucleus collisions by applying the Lehmann-Symanzik-Zimmermann reduction formula. We thus finalize the program started by Balitsky (see Ref.~\cite{Balitsky:2004rr}) and independently by Chirilli, Kovchegov and Wertepny (see Ref.~\cite{Chirilli:2015tea}) albeit using a very different approach to carry out our calculati…
The transport interaction rates of elastic scattering processes of thermal partons in the quark-gluon plasma are calculated beyond the leading logarithm approximation using the effective perturbation theory for QCD at finite temperatures developed by Braaten and Pisarski. The results for the ordinary and transport interaction rates obtained from the effective perturbation theory are compared to perturbative approximations based on an infrared cut-off by the Debye screening mass. The relevance of those interaction rates for a quark-gluon plasma possibly formed in ultrarelativistic heavy ion col…
The phenomenology of gluon saturation at small parton momentum fraction, Bjorken-x, in the proton and in the nucleus is introduced. The experimentally-accessible kinematic domains at the nucleus-nucleus colliders RHIC and LHC are discussed. Finally, the saturation hints emerging from measurements at RHIC and the perspectives for LHC are described.
We study contribution of radiative processes to $p_{\perp}$-broadening of fast partons in an expanding quark-gluon plasma. It is shown that the radiative correction to $\langle p_{\perp}^2\rangle$ for the QGP produced in $AA$-collisions at RHIC and LHC may be negative, and comparable in absolute value with the non-radiative contribution. We have found that the QGP expansion enhances the radiative suppression of $p_\perp$-broadening as compared to the static medium.
In this letter we suggest the generalization of $k_T$-factorization formula for inclusive gluon production for the dense-dense parton system scattering. It turnes out that the soft gluon production with transverse momentum $p_T$ is suppressed by additional Sudakov-like factor that depends on $p^2_T/Q^2_s$ ratio in a good agreement with the first numerical calculation in Colour Glass Condensate approach by J.P. Blaizot, T. Lappi and Y. Mehtar-Tan.
We study properties of high energy factorisable gluon densities focusing on saturation effects. In particular we show that the property of saturation of unintegrated gluon density allows for introduction of thermodynamical entropy associated with production of gluons. This is due to the observation that saturation scale acts like a mass of a gluon which related with temperature via thermodynamical relations allows for calculations of entropy. We also show that obtained entropy behaves like multiplicity of produced gluons.
We show that gluon saturation gives rise to a strong modification of the scaling in both the nuclear mass number $A$ and the virtuality $Q^2$ of the vector meson production cross-section in exclusive deep-inelastic scattering off nuclei. We present qualitative analytic expressions for how the scaling exponents are modified as well as quantitative predictions that can be tested at an Electron-Ion Collider.
We introduce a generalized definition of parton distribution functions (PDFs) for a more consistent all-order treatment of power corrections. We present a new set of modified DGLAP evolution equations for nuclear PDFs, and show that the resummed $α_s A^{1/3}/Q^2$-type of leading nuclear size enhanced power corrections significantly slow down the growth of gluon density at small-$x$. We discuss the relation between the calculated power corrections and the saturation phenomena.
The average transverse momentum transfer per unit path length to a fast parton scattering elastically in a perturbative quark-gluon plasma is related to the radiative energy loss of the parton. We first calculate the momentum transfer coefficient $\hat q$ in terms of a classical Langevin problem and then define it quantum-mechanically through scattering matrix element. After treating the well known case of a quark-gluon plasma in equilibrium we consider an off-equilibrium unstable plasma. As a specific example, we treat the two-stream plasma with unstable modes of longitudinal chromoelectric f…
In high energy proton-nucleus collisions, the gluon saturation effects from the nucleus are fully incorporated into the light-like Wilson lines. The gluon saturation effects from the proton, which are anticipated to be important either in the extreme high energy limit or towards the dense-dense (nucleus-nucleus) collision regimes, have been studied perturbatively within the Color Glass Condensate effective theory in previous papers of this series. A configuration-by-configuration expression for the single inclusive semi-hard gluon production including the first saturation correction was obtain…
The contribution of radiative processes to $p_\perp$-broadening of fast partons in a quark-gluon plasma is investigated. Calculations are performed beyond the soft gluon approximation. It is shown that the radiative correction to $\langle p_{\perp}^2\rangle$ for conditions of heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC is negative and can be comparable in absolute value with the nonradiative contribution. This prediction differs radically from the essentially positive contribution of radiative processes to $p_{\perp}$-broadening, which was predicted earlier in the literature.
We investigate hadrons and direct photon production in pp collisions at the LHC energy within the color-dipole approach. We show that greatest sensitivity to gluon saturation effects is reached at very forward rapidities in pp collisions at LHC (\sqrt{s}=14 TeV). The discrepancies among various saturation models (fitted to HERA data) results can be about a factor of 2-3 at forward rapidities. We found that the ratio of direct-photon to pion production can be about 20-10 at forward rapidities η=7-8. Therefore, direct photon production at forward rapidities should provide a rather clean probe as…
Gluon distributions in the carbon and tin nuclei are investigated by using a $Q^2$ rescaling model with parton recombination effects. We obtain strong shadowings in the small $x$ region due to the recombinations. The ratio $G_A(x)/G_N(x)$ in the medium $x$ region is typically 0.9 for medium size nuclei. At large $x$, the ratio becomes large due to gluon fusions from different nucleons. Comparisons with recent New Muon Collaboration data for $G_{Sn} (x)/ G_C (x)$ indicate that more accurate experimental data are needed for testing the model.
The idea of partons and the utility of using light-cone gauge in QCD are introduced. Saturation of quark and gluon distributions are discussed using simple models and in a more general context. The Golec-Biernat W\usthoff model and some simple phenomenology are described. A simple, but realistic, equation for unitary, the Kovchegov equation, is discussed, and an elementary derivation of the JIMWLK equation is given.
This is a personal summary of the meeting "Saturation, the Color Glass Condensate and Glasma: What Have we Learned from RHIC?" that took place at BNL in May 2010. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the status of high density QCD and parton saturation, and to review the progress that RHIC has allowed in the field.
It is argued that the gluon density introduced by A.Mueller in relation to the saturation phenomenon is different from the standardly defined one, which turned out to have a soliton-like form in the numerical calculations. It is shown that A.Mueller's densities obtained from the latter possess the same saturation properties as originally predicted.
The energy loss of a fast parton scattering elastically in a weakly coupled quark-gluon plasma is formulated as an initial value problem. The approach is designed to study an unstable plasma, but it reproduces the well known result in the case of an equilibrium plasma. Contributions to the energy loss due to unstable modes are shown to exponentially grow in time. An unstable two-stream system is considered as an example.
Quark and gluon distributions in the light-cone wavefunction of a high energy hadron or nucleus are calculated in the saturation regime. One loop calculations are performed explicitly using the equivalence between the parton distribution in the light-cone wavefunction and the production distribution of that parton in a current-nucleon (nucleus) scattering. We argue that, except for some overall numerical factors, the Weizsacker- Williams wavefunction correctly gives the physics of the gluon distribution in a light-cone wavefunction.
Lev Lipatov was a giant in the field of strong interactions and a dominant force in high-energy QCD for many decades. His work deeply influenced both how we think about QCD and how we perform calculations in the theory. Below we describe the work in two related research directions: the physics of parton saturation and proton spin at small $x$. Both developments would have been impossible without Lipatov's groundbreaking work. Saturation physics would not have happened without the Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL) equation. The recent progress in our theoretical understanding of the proton s…
We calculate the cross section for diffractive hadron production in deep inelastic scattering off heavy nuclei in the framework of gluon saturation/color glass condensate. We analyze the kinematic region of the future Electron-Ion Collider. We argue that coherent and incoherent diffractive channels are very sensitive to the structure of the nuclear matter at low $x$. This expresses itself in a characteristic dependence of the cross sections on rapidity and transverse momentum of the produced hadron and on the nuclear weight. We also discuss dependence on the scattering angle and argue that bot…
We calculate the classical single-gluon production amplitude in nucleus-nucleus collisions including the first saturation correction in one of the nuclei (the projectile) while keeping multiple-rescattering (saturation) corrections to all orders in the other nucleus (the target). In our approximation only two nucleons interact in the projectile nucleus: the single-gluon production amplitude we calculate is order-g^3 and is leading-order in the atomic number of the projectile, while resumming all order-one saturation corrections in the target nucleus. Our result is the first step towards obtain…
We calculate the inclusive gluon correlation function for arbitrary number of gluons with full rapidity and transverse momentum dependence for the initial glasma state of the p-p, p-A and A-A collisions. The formula we derive via superdiagrams generates cumulants for any number of gluons. Higher order cumulants contain information on correlations between multiple gluons, and they are necessary for calculations of higher dimensional ridges as well as flow coefficients from multi-particle correlations.
A new geometrical scaling method with gluon saturation rapidity limit is proposed to study the gluon saturation feature of the central rapidity region of relativistic nuclear collisions. The net-baryon number is essentially transported by valence quarks that probe the saturation regime in the target by multiple scattering. We take advantage of the gluon saturation model with geometric scaling of the rapidity limit to investigate the net baryon distributions, nuclear stopping power and gluon saturation features in the SPS and RHIC energy regions. Predictions for net-baryon rapidity distribution…
The energy loss per unit path length of a highly energetic parton scattering elastically in a weakly coupled quark-gluon plasma is studied as an initial value problem. The approach is designed to study unstable plasmas but in the case of an equilibrium plasma the well known result is reproduced. As an example of an unstable system, an extremely prolate plasma, where the momentum distribution is infinitely elongated along one direction, is considered here. The energy loss is shown to be strongly time and directionally dependent and its magnitude can much exceed the energy loss in equilibrium pl…
The screening potential of a parton moving through a quark-gluon plasma is calculated using the semi-classical transport theory. An anisotropic potential showing a minimum in the direction of the parton velocity is found. As consequences possible new bound states and J/psi dissociation are discussed.
We report on the results obtained in the study of the parton saturation effects, taken into account through the multiscattering Glauber-Mueller approach, applied to the Drell-Yan (DY) process described in the color dipole picture. As a main result, one shows that those effects play an important role in the estimates of the DY differential cross section atRHIC energies.
A Linear Boltzmann Transport model within perturbative QCD is developed for the study of parton propagation inside the quark-gluon plasma. Both leading partons and thermal recoil partons are tracked so that one can also study jet-induced medium excitations. In this study, we implement the complete set of elastic parton scattering processes and investigate elastic parton energy loss, transverse momentum broadening and their nontrivial energy and length dependence. We further investigate medium modifications of the jet shape and fragmentation functions of reconstructed jets. Contributions from t…
We construct diffractive parton distributions in the model of DIS diffraction in which the diffractive state is formed by the $q\bar{q}$ and $q\bar{q}g$ components. The interaction of such systems with the proton is described by the dipole cross section given by the saturation model. We find Regge factorization property with the measured at HERA depenedence on energy. The found parton distributions are evolved with the DGLAP evolution equations to make a comparison with the data.
We show that instanton calculations in QCD become theoretically well defined in the gluon saturation environment which suppresses large size instantons. The effective cutoff scale is determined by the inverse of the saturation scale. We concentrate on two most important cases: the small-x tail of a gluon distribution of a high energy hadron or a large nucleus and the central rapidity region in a high energy hadronic or heavy ion collision. In the saturation regime the gluon density in a single large ultrarelativistic nucleus is high and gluonic fields are given by the classical solutions of th…
We study the gluon parton densities [parton distribution functions (PDFs), transverse momentum distributions (TMDs), generalized parton distributions (GPDs)] and form factors in soft-wall AdS/QCD. We show that the power behavior of gluon parton distributions and form factors at large values of the light-cone variable and large values of square momentum is consistent with quark counting rules. We also show that the transverse momentum distributions derived in our approach obey the model-independent Mulders-Rodrigues inequalities without referring to specific model parameters. All gluon parton d…
We derive the medium-induced, coherent gluon radiation spectrum associated with the hard forward scattering of an energetic parton off a nucleus, in the saturation formalism and within the Gaussian approximation for the relevant correlators of Wilson lines. The calculation reproduces the simple expression for the spectrum previously obtained in the opacity expansion formalism, and rigorously specifies its validity range. The connection between the calculations in the opacity expansion and saturation formalisms is made apparent. This study may serve as a first step in order to implement consist…
In this contribution we briefly review the current status of the dipole models and parton saturation on the basis of results presented at the HERA-LHC workshops in the years 2006-2008. The problem of foundations of the dipole models is addressed within the QCD formalism. Some limitations of the models and open problems are pointed out. Furthermore, we review and compare the currently used dipole models and summarise the applications to describe various sets of HERA data. Finally we outline some of the theoretical approaches to the problem of multiple scattering and saturation.
Progresses towards the calculation and the understanding of NLO/NLL contributions to Deep Inelastic Scattering at low x with gluon saturation are being reviewed.
I describe the parton picture at strong coupling emerging from the gauge/gravity duality, with emphasis on the universality of the phenomenon of parton saturation. I discuss several consequences of this picture for the phenomenology of a strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma, which are potentially relevant for heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC.
We study coherent and incoherent diffractive hadron production in high energy quarkonium--heavy nucleus collisions as a probe of the gluon saturation regime of QCD. Taking this process as a model for pA collisions, we argue that the coherent diffractive gluon production, in which the target nucleus states intact, exhibits a remarkable sensitivity to the energy, rapidity and atomic number dependence. The incoherent diffractive gluon production is less sensitive to the details of the low-x dynamics but can serve as a probe of fluctuations in the color glass condensate. As a quantitative measure …
Initially produced quark-gluon matter at RHIC and LHC does not have a temperature. A quark-gluon plasma has a high temperature. From this quark-gluon matter to the quark-gluon plasma is the early thermalization or the rapid creation of temperature. Elastic three-parton scattering plays a key role in the process. The temperature originates from the two-parton scattering, the three-parton scattering, the four-parton scattering and so forth in quark-gluon matter.
