26333262
Generalized parton distributions and rapidity gap survival in exclusive diffractive pp scattering
We study rapidity gap survival (RGS) in the production of high-mass systems (H=dijet, heavy quarkonium, Higgs boson) in double-gap exclusive diffractive pp scattering, pp{yields}p+(gap)+H+(gap)+p. Our approach is based on the idea that hard and soft interactions are approximately independent because they proceed over widely different time and distance scales. We implement this idea in a partonic description of proton structure, which allows for a model-independent treatment of the interplay of hard and soft interactions. The high-mass system is produced in a hard scattering process with exchange of two gluons between the protons, whose amplitude is calculable in terms of the gluon generalized parton distribution (GPD), measured in exclusive ep scattering. The hard scattering process is modified by soft spectator interactions, which we calculate neglecting correlations between hard and soft interactions (independent interaction approximation). We obtain an analytic expression for the RGS probability in terms of the phenomenological pp elastic scattering amplitude, without reference to the eikonal approximation. Contributions from inelastic intermediate states are suppressed. The onset of the black-disk limit in pp scattering at TeV energies strongly suppresses diffraction at small impact parameters and is the main factor in determining the RGS probability. Correlations between hard and soft interactions (e.g.more » due to scattering from the long-range pion field of the proton or due to possible short-range transverse correlations between partons) further decrease the RGS probability. We also investigate the dependence of the diffractive cross section on the transverse momenta of the final-state protons ('diffraction pattern'). By measuring this dependence one can perform detailed tests of the interplay of hard and soft interactions and even extract information about the gluon GPD in the proton. Such studies appear to be feasible with the planned forward detectors at the Large Hadron Collider.« less
125666710
Nucleon matrix elements of twist - three and twist -4 operators from the instanton vacuum
16801030
Polarized antiquark flavor asymmetry in Drell–Yan pair production
Abstract. We investigate the role of the flavor asymmetry of the nucleon's polarized antiquark distributions in Drell–Yan lepton pair production in polarized nucleon–nucleon collisions at HERA (fixed–target) and RHIC energies. It is shown that the large polarized antiquark flavor asymmetry predicted by model calculations in the large–$N_c$ limit (chiral quark–soliton model) has a dramatic effect on the double spin asymmetries in high mass lepton pair production, as well as on the single spin asymmetries in lepton pair production through $W^\pm$–bosons at $M^2 = M_W^2$.
119292449
Nuclear physics with a medium-energy Electron-Ion Collider
A polarized ep/eA collider (Electron-Ion Collider, or EIC) with variable center-of-mass energy √s ∼ 20–70 GeV and luminosity ∼1034 cm−2 s−1 would be uniquely suited to address several outstanding questions of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) and the microscopic structure of hadrons and nuclei: i) the three-dimensional structure of the nucleon in QCD (sea quark and gluon spatial distributions, orbital motion, polarization, correlations); ii) the fundamental color fields in nuclei (nuclear parton densities, shadowing, coherence effects, color transparency); iii) the conversion of color charge to hadrons (fragmentation, parton propagation through matter, in-medium jets). We briefly review the conceptual aspects of these questions and the measurements that would address them, emphasizing the qualitatively new information that could be obtained with the collider. Such a medium-energy EIC could be realized at Jefferson Lab after the 12GeV Upgrade (MEIC), or at Brookhaven National Lab as the low-energy stage of eRHIC.
16303633
Rapidity gap survival in central exclusive diffraction: Dynamical mechanisms and uncertainties
We summarize our understanding of the dynamical mechanisms governing rapidity gap survival in central exclusive diffraction, pp -> p + H + p (H = high-mass system), and discuss the uncertainties in present estimates of the survival probability. The main suppression of diffractive scattering is due to inelastic soft spectator interactions at small pp impact parameters and can be described in a mean-field approximation (independent hard and soft interactions). Moderate extra suppression results from fluctuations of the partonic configurations of the colliding protons. At LHC energies absorptive interactions of hard spectator partons associated with the gg -> H process reach the black-disk regime and cause substantial additional suppression, pushing the survival probability below 0.01.
55072904
Transverse nucleon structure and diagnostics of hard parton-parton processes at LHC
We propose a new method to determine at what transverse momenta particle production in high-energy pp collisions is governed by hard parton-parton processes. Using information on the transverse spatial distribution of partons obtained from hard exclusive processes in ep/\gamma p scattering, we evaluate the impact parameter distribution of pp collisions with a hard parton-parton process as a function of p_T of the produced parton (jet). We find that the average pp impact parameters in such events depend very weakly on p_T in the range 2 < p_T < few 100 GeV, while they are much smaller than those in minimum-bias inelastic collisions. The impact parameters in turn govern the observable transverse multiplicity in such events (in the direction perpendicular to the trigger particle or jet). Measuring the transverse multiplicity as a function of p_T thus provides an effective tool for determining the minimum p_T for which a given trigger particle originates from a hard parton-parton process.
22188300
Differences between mean-field dynamics and N-particle quantum dynamics as a signature of entanglement.
A Bose-Einstein condensate in a tilted double-well potential under the influence of time-periodic potential differences is investigated in the regime where the mean-field (Gross-Pitaevskii) dynamics become chaotic. For some parameters near stable regions, even averaging over several condensate oscillations does not remove the differences between mean-field and N-particle results. While introducing decoherence via piecewise deterministic processes reduces those differences, they are due to the emergence of mesoscopic entangled states in the chaotic regime.