Transverse momentum dependent (TMD) distributions at small x exhibit a rich infinite twist structure that encompasses the leading twist (partonic) distributions as well as the physics of gluon saturation. Progress to further the connection between the standard TMD framework at moderate x and small x has been recently made. In this context, we show that light cone Wilson line operators at small-x can be formulated in terms of transverse gauge links. This new formulation of small x operators allows a direct matching with the standard leading twist gluon TMD distributions and provides an efficient and general prescription for computing TMD distributions at small x beyond leading twist.
The interplay between the small x limit of QCD amplitudes and QCD factorization at moderate x has been studied extensively in recent years. It was finally shown that semiclassical formulations of small x physics can have the form of an infinite twist framework involving Transverse Momentum Dependent (TMD) distributions in the eikonal limit. In this work, we demonstrate that small x distributions can be formulated in terms of transverse gauge links. This allows in particular for direct and efficient decompositions of observables into subamplitudes involving gauge invariant sub-operators which span parton distributions.
We compute the quark and gluon transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^3$LO) in perturbative QCD. Our calculation is based on an expansion of the differential Higgs boson and Drell-Yan production cross sections about their collinear limit. This method allows us to employ cutting edge techniques for the computation of cross sections to extract the universal building blocks in question. The corresponding perturbative matching kernels for all channels are expressed in terms of simple harmonic polylogarithms up to weight five. As a byproduct, we confirm a previous computation of the soft function for transverse momentum factorization at N$^3$LO. Our results are the last missing ingredient to extend the $q_T$ subtraction methods to N$^3$LO and to obtain resummed $q_T$ spectra at N$^3$LL$^prime$ accuracy both for gluon as well as for quark initiated processes.
The transverse momentum distributions of various hadrons produced in most central Pb+Pb collisions at LHC energy Root(s_NN) = 2.76 TeV have been studied using our earlier proposed unified statistical thermal freeze-out model. The calculated results are found to be in good agreement with the experimental data measured by the ALICE experiment. The model calculation fits provide the thermal freeze-out conditions in terms of the temperature and collective flow effect parameters for different particle species. Interestingly the model parameter fits reveal a strong collective flow in the system which appears to be a consequence of the increasing particle density at LHC. The model used incorporates a longitudinal as well as transverse hydrodynamic flow. The chemical potential has been assumed to be nearly equal to zero for the bulk of the matter owing to a high degree of nuclear transparency effect at such energies. The contributions from heavier decay resonances are also taken into account in our calculations.
An overview is presented of transverse momentum distributions of particles at the LHC using the Tsallis distribution. The use of a thermodynamically consistent form of this distribution leads to an excellent description of charged and identified particles. The values of the Tsallis parameter q are truly remarkably consistent.
We reconsider the evolution equations for transverse momentum dependent distributions recently proposed by us and recast them in a form which allows the comparison with results recently appeared in the literature. We show under which conditions the obtained results might be consistent with each other.