We calculate, for nonzero momentum transfer, the dipole formula for the high energy behaviour of elastic and quasielastic scattering of a virtual photon. We obtain an expression of the nonforward photon impact factor and of the nonforward photon wave function, and we give a physical interpretation.
We study exclusive quarkonium production in the dipole picture at next-to-leading order (NLO) accuracy, using the non-relativistic expansion for the quarkonium wavefunction. This process offers one of the best ways to obtain information about gluon distributions at small $x$, in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions and in deep inelastic scattering. The quarkonium light cone wave functions needed in the dipole picture have typically been available only at tree level, either in phenomenological models or in the nonrelativistic limit. In this paper, we discuss the compatibility of the dipole approach and the non-relativistic expansion and compute NLO relativistic corrections to the quarkonium light-cone wave function in light-cone gauge. Using these corrections we recover results for the NLO decay width of quarkonium to $e^{+}e^{-}$ and we check that the non-relativistic expansion is consistent with ERBL evolution and with B-JIMWLK evolution of the target. The results presented here will allow computing the exclusive quarkonium production rate at NLO once the one loop photon wave function with massive quarks, currently under investigation, is known.
On the assumption that quasars (QSO) and gamma-ray bursts (GRB) represent standardisable candles, we provide evidence that the Hubble constant $H_0$ adopts larger values in hemispheres aligned with the CMB dipole direction. The observation is consistent with similar trends in strong lensing time delay, Type Ia supernovae (SN) and with well documented discrepancies in the cosmic dipole. Therefore, not only do strong lensing time delay, Type Ia SN, QSOs and GRBs seem to trace a consistent anisotropic Universe, but variations in $H_0$ across the sky suggest that Hubble tension is a symptom of a deeper cosmological malaise.
The total $gamma^*gamma^*$ cross-section is derived in the Leading Order QCD dipole picture of BFKL dynamics, and compared with the one from 2-gluon exchange. The Double Leading Logarithm approximation of the DGLAP cross-section is found to be small in the phase space studied. Cross sections are calculated for realistic data samples at the $e^+e^-$ collider LEP and a future high energy linear collider. Next to Leading order corrections to the BFKL evolution have been determined phenomenologically, and are found to give very large corrections to the BFKL cross-section, leading to a reduced sensitivity for observing BFKL.
A personal summary of the discussions which took place at the informal meeting in Amirim, Israel from June 1-4 2000, concerning the dipole picture of small-$x$ physics is presented. The broad aim of the meeting was to address the question ``Has HERA reached a new QCD regime (at small $x$) ?. The new regime in question is the high-density, but weak-coupling, limit of perturbative QCD.
We apply the dipole formalism that has been developed to describe low-x deep inelastic scattering to the case of ultra-high energy real photons with nucleon and nuclear targets. We hope that there will be future modeling applications in high-energy particle astrophysics. We modify the dipole model of McDermott, Frankfurt, Guzey, and Strikman (MFGS) by fixing the cross section at the maximum value allowed by the unitarity constraint whenever the dipole model would otherwise predict a unitarity violation. We observe that, under reasonable assumptions, a significant fraction of the real photon cross section results from dipole interactions where the QCD coupling constant is small, and that the MFGS model is consistent with the Froissart bound. The resulting model predicts a rise of the cross section of about a factor of 12 when the the photon energy is increased from $10^{3}$ GeV to $10^{12}$ GeV. We extend the analysis to the case of scattering off a $^{12}$C target. We find that, due to the low thickness of the light nuclei, unitarity for the scattering off individual nucleons plays a larger role than for the scattering off the nucleus as a whole. At the same time the proximity to the black disk limit results in a substantial increase of the amount of nuclear shadowing. This, in turn, slows down the rate of increase of the total cross section with energy as compared to the proton case. As a result we find that the $^{12}$C nuclear cross section rises by about a factor of 7 when the photon energy is increased from $10^{3}$ GeV to $10^{12}$ GeV. We also find that the fraction of the cross section due to production of charm reaches 30% for the highest considered energies with a $^{12}$C target.