It is demonstrated that the fragmentation functions at large momentum fraction play a key role in hard hadron production from relativistic proton-proton collisions. We find that this region of the fragmentation functions is not strongly constrained by the electron-positron data. This freedom can be used (together with the transverse momentum distribution of partons) to reproduce hard pion-to-proton ratio data in relativistic proton-proton collisions.
We investigate lepton-pair production in hard exclusive hadron-hadron collisions. We consider a double handbag (DH) mechanism in which the process amplitude factorizes in hard subprocesses, qq -> qq gamma* and qg -> qg gamma*, and in soft hadron matrix elements parameterized as generalized parton distributions (GPDs). Employing GPDs extracted from exclusive meson electroproduction, we present predictions for the lepton-pair cross section at kinematics typical for the LHC, NICA and FAIR. It turns out from our numerical studies that the quark-gluon subprocess dominates by far, the quark-quark (antiquark) subprocesses are almost negligible.
It is shown that hadron abundances in high energy e+e-, pp and p{bar p} collisions, calculated by assuming that particles originate in hadron gas fireballs at thermal and partial chemical equilibrium, are in very good agreement with the data. The freeze-out temperature of the hadron gas fireballs turns out to be nearly constant over a large center of mass energy range and not dependent on the initial colliding system. The only deviation from chemical equilibrium resides in the incomplete strangeness phase space saturation. Preliminary results of an analysis of hadron abundances in S+S and S+Ag heavy ion collisions are presented.
We compute the unpolarized quark and gluon transverse-momentum dependent fragmentation functions (TMDFFs) at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^3$LO) in perturbative QCD. The calculation is based on a relation between the TMDFF and the limit of the semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering cross section where all final-state radiation becomes collinear to the detected hadron. The required cross section is obtained by analytically continuing our recent computation of the Drell-Yan and Higgs boson production cross section at N$^3$LO expanded around the limit of all final-state radiation becoming collinear to one of the initial states. Our results agree with a recent independent calculation by Luo et al.
Hadron inclusive spectra in pp collisions are analyzed within the modified quark-gluon string model including both the longitudinal and transverse motion of quarks in the proton in the wide region of initial energies. The self-consistent analysis shows that the experimental data on the inclusive spectra of light hadrons like pions and kaons at ISR energies can be satisfactorily described at transverse momenta not larger than 1-2 GeV/c. We discuss some difficulties to apply this model at energies above the ISR and suggest to include the distribution of gluons in the proton unintegrated over the internal transverse momentum. It leads to an increase in the inclusive spectra of hadrons and allows us to extend the satisfactory description of the data in the central rapidity region at energies higher than ISR.
We discuss heavy quarkonium production through parton fragmentation, including a review of arguments for the factorization of high-p_T particles into fragmentation functions for hadronic initial states. We investigate the further factorization of fragmentation functions in the NRQCD formalism, and argue that this requires a modification of NRQCD octet production matrix elements to include nonabelian phases, which makes them gauge invariant. We describe the calculation of uncanceled infrared divergences in fragmentation functions that must be factorized at NNLO, and verify that they are absorbed into the new, gauge invariant matrix elements.