We perform the first simultaneous global QCD analysis of spin-averaged and spin-dependent parton distribution functions (PDFs), including single jet production data from unpolarized and polarized hadron collisions. We critically assess the impact of SU(3) flavor symmetry and PDF positivity assumptions on the quark and gluon helicity PDFs, and find strong bias from these, particularly on the gluon polarization. The simultaneous analysis allows for the first time extraction of individual helicity-aligned and antialigned PDFs with a consistent treatment of uncertainties.
We deduce approximate equations of state from experimental measurements in proton-proton and proton-antiproton collisions. Thermodynamic quantities are estimated combining the measure of average transverse momentum <pt> vs pseudorapidity density dN/deta with the estimation of the interaction region size from measures of Bose Einstein correlation, or from a theoretical model which relates dN/deta to the impact parameter. The results are very similar to theory predictions in case of crossover from hadron gas to quark gluon plasma. According to our analysis, the possible crossover should start at…
We discuss diffractive dissociation of gluons into heavy quark pairs. The particular mechanism is similar to the diffractive dissociation of virtual photons into quarks, which drives diffractive deep inelastic production of charm in the low-mass diffraction, or large $β$-region. There, it can be understood, with some reservations, in terms of a valence heavy quark content of the Pomeron. The amplitude for the $g p \to Q \bar Q p$ is derived in the impact parameter and momentum space. The cross section for single diffractive $p p \to Q \bar Q p X$ is calculated as a convolution of the elementar…
We discuss the two-gluon exchange contribution (formally three-loops) to elastic photon-photon scattering in the high-energy approximation. The elastic $γγ\to γγ$ amplitude is given in the impact-factor representation for all helicity configurations and finite quark masses. We discuss the importance of including the charm quark, which contribution, due to interference, can enhance the cross section considerably. We investigate the contribution to the $γγ\to γγ$ amplitude from the soft region, by studying its dependence on nonperturbative gluon mass. Helicity-flip contributions are shown to be …
We argue that already the first year run at the LHC with 3.5 TeV proton beams will provide a quick and effective way to test the dynamics of the color dipole-gluon interactions and the small x behavior of the gluon density in proton from study of the vector meson photoproduction in ultraperipheral proton-proton collisions.
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 propose a new model for a homogeneous description of hadron-hadron and hadron-nucleus collisions, the Gluon Exchange Model, fundamentally based on color octet (gluon) exchange. In proton-proton collisions we provide an exact description of the final state proton and neutron spectrum including the proton diffractive peak. In proton-nucleus reactions we find that the projectile proton diquark cannot survive in more than about half of multiple proton-nucleon processes and consequently must be very frequently disintegrated, leading to long transfers of baryon number over rapidity space.
We derive expressions for the gluon production cross sections in the single diffractive proton-nucleus scattering and DIS processes in a quasi-classical approximation. The resulting cross sections include the effects of all multiple rescatterings in the classical background field of the target proton or nucleus, which remains intact after the scattering. We also write down an expression for the inclusive gluon production cross section in DIS in the quasi-classical approximation.
Gluons inside an unpolarized proton are in general linearly polarized in the direction of their transverse momentum, rendering the LHC effectively a polarized gluon collider. This polarization can be utilized in the determination of the spin and parity of the newly found Higgs-like boson. We focus here on the determination of the spin using the azimuthal Collins-Soper angle $ϕ$ distribution.
We obtain the gluon parton distribution functions (PDFs) in the proton within the extended light-front holographic QCD framework, where the proton couples with the spin-two Pomeron in Anti-de Sitter space, together with constraints imposed by the Veneziano model. The gluon helicity asymmetry, after satisfying the perturbative QCD constraints at small and large longitudinal momentum regions, agrees with existing experimental measurements. The polarized gluon distribution is consistent with global analyses. We predict the gluon helicity contribution to the proton spin, $ΔG=0.221^{+0.056}_{-0.044…
The study of a quasi back-to-back isolated pair made of a heavy quarkonium, such as a J/psi or a Upsilon, and a photon produced in proton-proton collisions at the LHC, is probably the optimal way to get right away a first experimental determination of two gluon transverse-momentum-dependent distributions (TMDs) in an unpolarized proton, f1^g and h1^perp,g the latter giving the distribution of linearly polarized gluons. To substantiate this, we calculate the transverse-momentum-dependent effects that arise in the process under study and discuss the feasibility of their measurements.
The leading order single inclusive soft gluon production in high energy proton-nucleus (pA) collisions has been studied by various approaches for more than two decades. The first correction due to the gluon saturation in proton was analytically attempted recently through a diagrammatic approach in which only partial results were obtained. An important feature of the first saturation correction is that it includes both initial state and final state interactions. In this paper, we present the complete result derived from the Color Glass Condensate framework. Our approach is to analytically solve…
The gluon transversity distribution in the deuteron is defined by the matrix element between linearly-polarized deuteron states, and it could be investigated in proton-deuteron collisions in addition to lepton-deuteron scattering. The linear polarization of photon is often used, whereas it is rarely used for the spin-1 deuteron. Therefore, it is desirable to express deuteron-reaction cross sections in term of conventional deuteron spin polarizations for actual experimental measurements. In this work, we investigate how proton-deuteron Drell-Yan cross sections are expressed by the conventional …
We present a formalism for gluon-gluon elastic scattering in the presence of the classical color field of the protons in high energy collision. The classical field is obtained by solving the classical Yang-Mills equation in the covariant gauge and treated as a prescribed background for the quantum gluons involved in the scattering process. The interaction between the classical field and the quantum gluon modifies the gluon propagator, and, in turn, the $gg\rightarrow gg$ amplitude. The modified gluon propagator is derived to the first non-zero order of the classical field using the Gaussian ap…
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 gluon distribution is dominated by the hard pomeron at small $x$ and all $Q^2$, with no soft-pomeron contribution. This describes well not only the DGLAP evolution of the hard-pomeron part of $F_2(x,Q^2)$, but also charm photoproduction and electroproduction, and the longitudinal structure function, all calculated in leading-order pQCD.
Central pseudoscalar production in $pp$ scattering is suppressed at small values of $Q_\perp$, where $Q$ is defined as the difference between the momenta transferred from the two protons. Such a behaviour is expected if the production occurs through the fusion of two vectors. Photon exchange could provide the dominant contribution at low transferred momenta, but we argue that an extension of the experiment could probe the gluon contribution to the proton spin.
We show that the Gottfried and the Bjorken integrals have the same nonperturbative evolution, which is related to the gluon polarization in the proton.
The possibility to determine the gluon density inside the proton in deep inelastic ep collisions using current-target multiplicity correlations is discussed.
The impact of isolated-photon data from proton-(anti)proton collisions at RHIC, SppbarS, Tevatron and LHC energies, on the parton distribution functions of the proton is studied using a recently developed Bayesian reweighting method. The impact on the gluon density of the 35 existing isolated-gamma measurements is quantified using next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD calculations complemented with the NNPDF2.1 parton densities. The NLO predictions are found to describe well most of the datasets from 200 GeV up to 7 TeV centre-of-mass energies. The isolated-photon spectra recently measu…
We report on a calculation of one-loop weak corrections to polarized quark-gluon scattering and the corresponding crossed channels. Such contributions are suppressed formally by one power of alpha_s relative to W- or Z-mediated quark-quark scattering, but would enable the spin asymmetry of the gluon distribution to contribute to parity-violating asymmetries that will soon be investigated in polarized proton-proton scattering experiments at RHIC. In certain kinematic regions, gluon contributions to parity-violating asymmetries can be as large as 10% of the tree-level W- and Z-exchanges in quark…
We argue that the study of heavy quarkonia, in particular that of $Υ$, produced back-to-back with an isolated photon in $pp$ collisions at the LHC is the best --and currently unique-- way to access the distribution of both the transverse momentum and the polarization of the gluon in an unpolarized proton. These encode fundamental information on the dynamics of QCD. We have derived analytical expressions for various transverse-momentum distributions which can be measured at the LHC and which allow for a direct extraction of the aforementioned quantities. To assess the feasibility of such measur…
Determining how much spin is carried by gluon in a polarized proton is a fundamental problem which cannot be resolved by completely inclusive deep inelastic measurements. Hadroproduction of heavy flavors is very sensitive to the gluon content of hadrons. We show that $χ_2 (3555)$ production in polarized proton-proton collisions is a good candidate reaction to address this challenging question.
Inclusive cross sections for Higgs boson production in proton-proton collisions are calculated in the formalism of unintegrated gluon distributions (UGDF). Different UGDF from the literature are used. Although they were constructed in order to describe the HERA deep-inelastic scattering $F_2$ data, they lead to surprisingly different results for Higgs production. We present both two-dimensional invariant cross section as a function of Higgs rapidity and transverse momentum, as well as corresponding projections on rapidity or transverse momentum. We quantify the differences between different UG…
We compare the single inclusive spectra of isolated photons measured at high transverse energy in proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD predictions with various parametrizations of the parton distribution functions (PDFs). Within the experimental and theoretical uncertainties, the Tevatron data can be reproduced equally well by the recent CTEQ6.6, MSTW08 and NNPDF1.2 PDF sets. We present also the predictions for isolated gamma spectra in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)=14TeV for central (y=0) and forward (y=4) rapidities relevant for L…
We apply our recently formulated Gluon Exchange Model (GEM) to baryon production in proton-nucleus reactions involving N>1 proton-nucleon collisions. We propose a description scheme for the process of soft color octet (gluon) exchange, based on the assumption that probabilities to form an effective diquark are equal for all allowed pairs of quarks. The latter effective diquark can form either from two valence, one valence and one sea, or from two sea quarks. Consequently we calculate the probabilities for different color configurations involving diquarks of valence-valence, valence-sea and sea…
We combine heavy-quark renormalization group arguments with our understanding of the nucleon's wavefunction to deduce a bound on the gluon polarization Delta g in the proton. The bound is consistent with the values extracted from spin experiments at COMPASS and RHIC.
We calculate cross sections for $g g \to Q \bar Q Q \bar Q$ in the high-energy approximation in the mixed (longitudinal momentum fraction, impact parameter) and momentum space representations. Besides the total cross section as a function of subsystem energy also differential distributions (in quark rapidity, transverse momentum, $Q Q$, $Q \bar Q$ invariant mass) are presented. The elementary cross section is used to calculate production of $(c \bar c) (c \bar c)$ in single-parton scattering (SPS) in proton-proton collisions. We present integrated cross section as a function of proton-proton c…
The proton-proton ($pp$) collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), CERN, Switzerland has brought up new challenges and opportunities in understanding the experimental findings in contrast to the conventional lower energy $pp$ collisions. Usually $pp$ collisions are used as the baseline measurement at the GeV and TeV energies in order to understand a possible high density QCD medium formation in heavy-ion collisions. However, the TeV $pp$ collisions have created a new domain of research, where scientists have started observing heavy-ion-like features (signatures) in high-multiplicity $pp$ …
To probe the behavior of polarized gluons in the proton, we propose the charmed hadron, such as Lambda_c and D^*, production in the forthcoming RHIC experiments. We found that the spin correlation between the target proton and the produced Lambda_c baryon might be a good signal for testing models of the polarized gluon distribution in the proton.
In this paper, we use momentum sum rule to compute the fractions of momentum carried by quarks and gluons in a self-similarity based model of proton. Comparison of the results with the prediction of QCD asymptotics is also made.
We consider the possibility of a direct determination of the polarized gluon density in the proton using charm production with polarized beams at HERA. We study total cross sections and distributions at leading order using different parametrizations of the polarized gluon density. We conclude that charm photoproduction data can be used to constrain the polarized gluon density in the proton if an integrated luminosity of 100~pb$^{-1}$ will be achieved at HERA.
We discuss the impact of recent high-statistics RHIC data on the determination of the gluon polarization in the proton in the context of a global QCD analysis of polarized parton distributions. We find clear evidence for a non-vanishing polarization of gluons in the region of momentum fraction and at the scales mostly probed by the data. Although information from low momentum fractions is presently lacking, this finding is suggestive of a significant contribution of gluon spin to the proton spin, thereby limiting the amount of orbital angular momentum required to balance the proton spin budget…
Central pseudoscalar production in $pp$ scattering is suppressed at small values of $Q_\perp$. Such a behavior is expected if the production occurs through the fusion of two vectors. We argue that an extension of the experiment could probe the gluon contribution to the proton spin.
The $k_{\perp}$ dependent gluon distribution is calculated accounting for the resummation of small~$x$ effects due to the Lipatov equation. It is represented by a convolution of a gluon density in the collinear limit and a universal function ${\cal G}(x,k^2,μ)$ for which an analytic expression is derived.
We analyze the transverse single-spin asymmetry in direct photon production from proton-proton collisions, denoted $A_N^γ$, within collinear twist-3 factorization. We provide a calculation of the contribution due to quark-gluon-quark correlations in the unpolarized proton as well as summarize previous studies on those effects in the polarized proton. Both soft-gluon poles and soft-fermion poles are considered. From this complete result we then estimate $A_N^γ$, including error bands due to uncertainties in the non-perturbative inputs, at kinematics relevant for planned measurements of this obs…
The mass ordering of mean transverse momentum $\left<p_T\right>$ and of the Fourier harmonic coefficient $v_2 (p_T)$ of azimuthally anisotropic particle distributions in high energy hadron collisions is often interpreted as evidence for the hydrodynamic flow of the matter produced. We investigate an alternative initial state interpretation of this pattern in high multiplicity proton-proton collisions at the LHC. The QCD Yang-Mills equations describing the dynamics of saturated gluons are solved numerically with initial conditions obtained from the Color Glass Condensate based IP-Glasma model. …
The current uncertainty on the gluon density extracted from the global parton analysis is large in the kinematical range of small values of the Bjorken - $x$ variable and low values of the hard scale $Q^2$. An alternative to reduces this uncertainty is the analysis of the exclusive vector meson photoproduction in photon - hadron and hadron - hadron collisions. This process offers a unique opportunity to constrain the gluon density of the proton, since its cross section is proportional to the gluon density squared. In this paper we consider current parametrizations for the gluon distribution an…
We present a comprehensive impact study of future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) data for parity-conserving and parity-violating polarization asymmetries on quark and gluon helicity distributions in the proton. The study, which is based on the JAM Monte Carlo global QCD analysis framework, explores the role of the extrapolation uncertainty and SU(3) flavor symmetry constraints in the simulated double-spin asymmetry, $A_{LL}$, at small parton momentum fractions $x$ and its effect on the extracted parton polarizations. We find that different assumptions about $A_{LL}$ extrapolations and SU(3) symme…
We propose a novel observable for the experimental detection of the gluon orbital angular momentum (OAM) that constitutes the proton spin sum rule. We consider longitudinal double spin asymmetry in exclusive dijet production in electron-proton scattering and demonstrate that the $\cos ϕ$ azimuthal angle correlation between the scattered electron and proton is a sensitive probe of the gluon OAM at small-$x$ and its interplay with the gluon helicity. We also present a numerical estimate of the cross section for the kinematics of the Electron-Ion Collider.
Little information is known about the polarization of gluons inside a longitudinally polarized proton. We investigate the sensitivity of photoproduction experiments with both beam and target longitudinally polarized to the polarization of the gluon distribution in the proton. We study the photoproduction of jets and heavy quarks and conclude that they are both sensitive to the gluon polarization.
It is discussed how the dijet azimuthal correlations in DIS and real photoproduction at HERA probe the unintegrated gluon distribution in the proton. The correlation function shows a strong dependence on kinematical variables. We discuss a possible interplay of perturbative and nonperturbative effects.
The investigation of a proposed glueball filter in proton-proton collisions led us to show that its action is in fact easily understood in terms of kinematics. While the procedure proposed stays of interest in reducing background when lookingfor centrally produced resonances of specified spin and parity, we stress that it can be put to advantage in giving access to the polarization of gluons in the inital protons
The modification of quark- and gluon-initiated jets in the quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy-ion collisions is a long-standing question that has not yet received a definitive answer from experiments. In particular, the size of the modifications in the quark-gluon plasma differs between theoretical models. Therefore a fully data-driven technique is crucial for an unbiased extraction of the quark and gluon jet spectra and substructure. Corroborating past results, I demonstrate the capability of a fully data-driven technique called topic modeling in separating quark and gluon contributions to …
We examine carefully bottomonia hadroproduction in proton colliders, especially focusing on the LHC, as a way of probing the gluon density in protons. To this end we develop some previous work, getting quantitative predictions and concluding that our proposal can be useful to perform consistency checks of the parameterization sets of different parton distribution functions.
The production of the lightest chargino pair from gluon-gluon fusion is studied in the minimal supersymmetric model(MSSM) at proton-proton colliders. We find that with the chosen parameters, the production rate of the subprocess can be over 2.7 femto barn when the chargino is higgsino-like, and the corresponding total cross section in proton-proton collider can reach 56 femto barn at the LHC in the CP-conserving MSSM. It shows that this loop mediated subprocess can be competitive with the standard Drell-Yan subprocess in proton-proton colliders, especially at the LHC. Furthermore, our calculat…
Transverse momentum dependent gluon distributions encode fundamental information on the structure of the proton. Here we show how they can be accessed in heavy quarkonium production in proton-proton collisions at the LHC. In particular, their first determination could come from the study of an isolated J/psi or Upsilon particle, produced back to back with a photon.
We analyse how the reaction gamma p -> gamma + jet + X can serve to constrain the gluon distributions. Our results are based on a code of partonic event generator type which includes full NLO corrections. We conclude that there are phase space domains in which either the gluon in the photon or the gluon in the proton give important contributions to the cross section, which should be observable in HERA experiments.
The different modifications of quark- and gluon-initiated jets in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) produced in heavy-ion collisions is a long-standing question that has not yet received a definitive answer from experiments. In particular, the relative sizes of the modification of quark and gluon jets differ between theoretical models. Therefore, a fully data-driven technique is crucial for an unbiased extraction of the quark and gluon jet spectra and substructure. We perform a proof-of-concept study based on proton-proton and heavy-ion collision events from the \textsc{Pyquen} generator with stati…
