Heavy quark production in high-energy proton-nucleus (pA) collisions is described in the framework of the Color Glass Condensate. kT factorization is broken even at leading order albeit a more general factorization in pA holds at this order in terms of 2, 3 and 4 point correlators of Wilson lines in the nuclear target. The x-evolution of these correlators is computed in the large A and large N mean field limit of the Balitsky-Kovchegov equation. We show results for heavy quark production at RHIC and LHC energies.
Quarkonium production in high-energy proton (deuteron)-nucleus collisions is investigated in the color glass condensate framework. We employ the color evaporation model assuming that the quark pair produced from dense small-x gluons in the nuclear target bounds into a quarkonium outside the target. The unintegrated gluon distribution at small Bjorken x in the nuclear target is treated with the Balitsky-Kovchegov equation with running coupling corrections. For the gluons in the proton, we examine two possible descriptions, unintegrated gluon distribution and ordinary collinear gluon distribution. We present the transverse momentum spectrum and nuclear modification factor for J/psi production at RHIC and LHC energies, and those for Upsilon(1S) at LHC energy, and discuss the nuclear modification factor and the momentum broadening by changing the rapidity and the initial saturation scale.
In this paper we estimate the double parton scattering (DPS) contribution for the heavy quark production in $pA$ collisions at the LHC. The cross sections for the charm and bottom production are estimated using the dipole approach and taking into account the saturation effects, which are important for high energies and for the scattering with a large nucleus. We compare the DPS contribution with the single parton scattering one and demonstrate that in the case of charm production both are similar in the kinematical range probed by the LHC. Predictions for the rapidity range analysed by the LHCb Collaboration are also presented. Our results indicate that the study of the DPS contribution for the heavy quark production in $pPb$ collisions at the LHC is feasible and can be useful to probe the main assumptions of the approach.
Hadron production in proton-nucleus (pA) collisions was previously shown to be suppressed by medium-induced fully coherent energy loss (FCEL). We show that the quenching of $D$ and $B$ mesons in pPb collisions at the LHC due solely to FCEL is, at least, on par with other nuclear effects such as gluon shadowing or saturation. This is consistent with previous findings for both quarkonium and light hadron production in pA collisions, emphasising that FCEL effects need to be included for a reliable understanding of hadron production measurements in pA collisions.
In a suitably chosen back-to-back kinematics, four-jet production in hadronic collisions is known to be dominated by contributions from two independent partonic scattering processes, thus giving experimental access to the structure of generalized two-parton distributions 2GPDs. Here, we show that a combined measurement of the double hard four-jet cross section in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions will allow one to disentangle different sources of two-parton correlations in the proton, that cannot be disentangled with 4-jet measurements in proton-proton collisions alone. To this end, we analyze in detail the structure of 2GPDs in the nucleus (A), we calculate in the independent nucleon approximation all contributions to the double hard four-jet cross section in pA, and we determine corrections arising from the nuclear dependence of single parton distribution functions. We then outline an experimental strategy for determining the longitudinal two-parton correlations in the proton.
The ultra-relativistic heavy-ion programs at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider have evolved into a phase of quantitative studies of Quantum Chromodynamics at very high temperatures. The charm and bottom hadron production offer unique insights into the remarkable transport properties and the microscopic structure of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in these collisions. Heavy quarks, due to their large masses, undergo Brownian motion at low momentum, provide a window on hadronization mechanisms at intermediate momenta, and are expected to merge into a radiative-energy loss regime at high momentum. We review recent experimental and theoretical achievements on measuring a variety of heavy-flavor observables, characterizing the different regimes in momentum, extracting pertinent transport coefficients and deducing implications for the inner workings of the QGP medium.