No Arabic abstract
Sufficiently inclusive processes, like the deep inelastic scattering (DIS), are described in terms of scale-dependent parton distributions, which correspond to the density of partons with a given longitudinal momentum fraction, integrated over the parton transverse momentum. For less inclusive processes, one needs to consider densities unintegrated over the transverse momentum. This work focuses on the unintegrated gluon distribution (UGD), describing the probability that a gluon can be emitted by a colliding proton, with definite longitudinal fraction and transverse momentum. Through the leptoproduction of the $rho$-meson at HERA, existent models for the UGD will be investigated and compared with experimental data.
Exclusive emissions of vector mesons in forward directions of rapidity offer us a faultless chance to probe the proton structure at small-$x$. A high-energy factorization formula is established within BFKL, given as the convolution of an impact factor depicting the forward-meson emission and of an unintegrated gluon distribution (UGD) driving the gluon evolution at small-$x$. As a nonperturbative quantity, the UGD is not well known and several models for it exist. We present recent progresses on the study of the exclusive forward $rho$-meson leptoproduction at HERA and EIC energies, showing how osbervables sensitive to different polarization states of the $rho$-particle act as discriminators for the existing UGD models.
We present detailed numerical analysis of the unintegrated double gluon distribution which includes the dependence on the transverse momenta of partons. The unintegrated double gluon distribution was obtained following the Kimber-Martin-Ryskin method as a convolution of the perturbative gluon splitting function with the collinear integrated double gluon distribution and the Sudakov form factors. We analyze the dependence on the transverse momenta, longitudinal momentum fractions and hard scales. We find that the unintegrated gluon distribution factorizes into a product of two single unintegrated gluon distributions in the region of small values of $x$, provided the splitting contribution is included and the momentum sum rule is satisfied.
We present a nonperturbative QCD calculation of diffractive vector meson production in virtual photon nucleon scattering at high energy. We use the nonperturbative model of the stochastic QCD vacuum which yields linear confinement and makes specific predictions for the dependence of high-energy scattering cross sections on the hadron size. Using light cone wave functions of the photon and vector mesons, we calculate electroproduction cross sections for $rho$, $omega$, $phi$ and $J/psi$. We emphasize the behavior of specific observables such as the ratio of longitudinal to transverse production cross section and the t-dependence of the differential cross section.
We provide a semi-classical description of the inclusive gluon induced Deep Inelastic Scattering cross section in a way that accounts for the leading powers in both the Regge and Bjorken limits. Our approach thus allows a systematic matching of small and moderate $x_{rm Bj}$ regimes of gluon proton structure functions. We find a new unintegrated gluon distribution with an explicit dependence on the longitudinal momentum fraction $x$ which entirely spans both the dipole operator and the gluonic Parton Distribution Function. Computing this gauge invariant gluon operator on the lattice could allow to probe the energy dependence of the saturation scale from first principles.
We compute the leading order (LO) $qgto q gamma$ and next-to-leading order (NLO) $ggto q{bar q} gamma$ contributions to inclusive photon production in proton-proton (p+p) collisions at the LHC. These channels provide the dominant contribution at LO and NLO for photon transverse momenta $k_{gammaperp}$ corresponding to momentum fractions of $xleq 0.01$ in the colliding protons. Our computations, performed in the dilute-dense framework of the Color Glass Condensate effective field theory (CGC EFT), show that the NLO contribution dominates at small-$x$ because it is sensitive to $k_perp$-dependent unintegrated gluon distributions in both of the protons. We predict a maximal $10%$ modification of the cross section at low $k_{gammaperp}$ as a direct consequence of the violation of $k_perp$-factorization. The coherence effects responsible for this modification are enhanced in nuclei and can be identified from inclusive photon measurements in proton-nucleus collisions. We provide numerical results for the isolated inclusive photon cross section for $k_{gammaperp}leq 20$ GeV in p+p collisions that can be tested in the future at the LHC.