No Arabic abstract
In this contribution we briefly discuss an ongoing phenomenological programme on quarkonium production in unpolarized and polarized proton-proton collisions in a fixed target setup at LHCb, the LHCSpin project. Within a TMD approach, we aim at considering in particular: the relative role of the NRQCD color-singlet and color-octet production mechanisms, both for unpolarized and polarized quarkonium production; the study of azimuthal and transverse single-spin asymmetries as a phenomenological tool for learning about the almost unknown gluon Sivers function; the role of initial- and final-state interactions for spin asymmetries.
I report on our investigations into the impact of (un)polarized transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions (TMD PDFs or TMDs) for gluons at hadron colliders, especially at A Fixed Target Experiment at the LHC (AFTER@LHC). In the context of high energy proton-proton collisions, we look at final states with low mass (e.g. $eta_b$) in order to investigate the nonperturbative part of TMD PDFs. We study the factorization theorem for the $q_T$ spectrum of $eta_b$ produced in proton-proton collisions relying on the effective field theory approach, defining the tools to perform phenomenological investigations at next-to-next-to-leading log (NNLL) and next-to-leading order (NLO) accuracy in the perturbation theory. We provide predictions for the unpolarized cross section and comment on the possibility of extracting nonperturbative information about the gluon content of the proton once data at low transverse momentum are available.
Being the mother distributions of all types of two-parton correlation functions, generalized transverse momentum dependent parton distributions (GTMDs) have attracted a lot of attention over the last years. We argue that exclusive double production of pseudoscalar quarkonia ($eta_c$ or $eta_b$) in nucleon-nucleon collisions gives access to GTMDs of gluons.
We summarise the perspectives on heavy-quarkonium production at the LHC, both for proton-proton and heavy-ion runs, as emanating from the round table held at the HLPW 2008 Conference. The main topics are: present experimental and theoretical knowledge, experimental capabilities, open questions, recent theoretical advances and potentialities linked to some new observables.
The hadronic production of $D$-wave states of $bar b c$ is studied. The relative yield of such states is estimated for kinematic conditions of LHC experiments.
We review the prospects for quarkonium-production studies in proton and nuclear collisions accessible during the upcoming phases of the CERN Large Hadron Collider operation after 2021, including the ultimate high-luminosity phase, with increased luminosities compared to LHC Runs 1 and 2. We address the current experimental and theoretical open issues in the field and the perspectives for future studies in quarkonium-related physics through the exploitation of the huge data samples to be collected in proton-proton, with integrated luminosities reaching up to 3/ab, in proton-nucleus and in nucleus-nucleus collisions, both in the collider and fixed-target modes. Such investigations include, among others, those of: (i) the quarkonia produced in association with other hard particles; (ii) the chi(Q) and eta(Q) down to small transverse momenta; (iii) the constraints brought in by quarkonia on gluon PDFs, nuclear PDFs, TMDs, GPDs and GTMDs, as well as on the low-x parton dynamics; (iv) the gluon Sivers effect in polarised-nucleon collisions; (v) the properties of the quark-gluon plasma produced in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions and of collective partonic effects in general; and (vi) double and triple parton scatterings.