We compare the theoretical status and the numerical predictions of two approaches for heavy quark production in the high energy hadron collisions, namely the conventional LO parton model with collinear approximation and $k_T$-factorization approach. The main assumptions used in the calculations are discussed. To extract the differences coming from the matrix elements we use very simple gluon structure function and fixed coupling. It is shown that the $k_T$-factorization approach calculated formally in LO and with Sudakov form factor accounts for many contributions related usually to NLO (and even NNLO) processes of the conventional parton model
We study the production of prompt photons at high energy in the framework of the k_T-factorization approach. The amplitude for production of a single photon associated with quark pair in the fusion of two off-shell gluons is calculated. Theoretical results are compared with the Tevatron data.
We present a new approach for the prompt production of quarkonia which is based on the $k_T$-factorization method. The production of even C-parity quarkonia proceeds via the fusion of two (off-shell) gluons. Especially in the kinematics of the LHCb experiment these processes are thus expected to be a sensitive probe of the small-$x$ gluon distribution. We calculate the relevant off-shell matrix elements in terms of the light-front wave functions of the quarkonium states. We present our results for scalar and pseudoscalar charmonia and discuss photon transition form factors as well as cross sections for prompt hadroproduction. We compare our results for the $eta_c$ to recent LHCb data.
We describe the current status of the diffractive vector meson production calculations within the k_t-factorization approach. Since the amplitude of the vector meson production off a proton is expressed via the differential gluon structure function (DGSF), we take a closer look at the latter and present results of our new improved determination of the DGSF from the structure function F_2p. Having determined the differential glue, we proceed to the k_t-factorization results for the production of various vector mesons. We argue that the properties of the vector meson production can reveal the internal spin-angular and radial structure of the vector meson.
We discuss the inclusive production of jets in the central region of rapidity in the context of k_T-factorization at next-to-leading order (NLO). Calculations are performed in the Regge limit making use of the NLO BFKL results. We introduce a jet cone definition and carry out a proper phase--space separation into multi-Regge and quasi-multi-Regge kinematic regions. We discuss two situations: scattering of highly virtual photons, which requires a symmetric energy scale to separate impact factors from the gluon Greens function, and hadron-hadron collisions, where a non-symmetric scale choice is needed.
The characteristics of the thermal radiation are investigated using a two - component model, with the hard component being described by the Color Glass Condensate formalism. The inclusive transverse momentum spectra of charged hadrons produced in proton - proton and proton - nucleus collisions at LHC energies and large - $p_T$ are estimated using the running coupling $k_T$ - factorization formula and the solution of the Balitsky - Kovchegov equation. Our results indicate that the thermal term is necessary to describe the experimental data and that the effective thermal temperature has an energy dependence similar to the saturation scale. We demonstrate that the enhancement of the thermal temperature in $pPb$ collisions is consistent with that predicted by the saturation scale.