We present a Monte Carlo based analysis of the combined world data on polarized lepton-nucleon deep-inelastic scattering at small Bjorken $x$ within the polarized quark dipole formalism. We show for the first time that double-spin asymmetries at $x<0
.1$ can be successfully described using only small-$x$ evolution derived from first-principles QCD, allowing predictions to be made for the $g_1$ structure function at much smaller $x$. Anticipating future data from the Electron-Ion Collider, we assess the impact of electromagnetic and parity-violating polarization asymmetries on $g_1$ and demonstrate an extraction of the individual flavor helicity PDFs at small $x$.
We construct a generalization of the McLerran-Venugopalan (MV) model including helicity effects for a longitudinally polarized target (a proton or a large nucleus). The extended MV model can serve as the initial condition for the helicity generalizat
ion of the JIMWLK evolution equation constructed in our previous paper, as well as for calculation of helicity-dependent observables in the quasi-classical approximation to QCD.
Lev Lipatov was a giant in the field of strong interactions and a dominant force in high-energy QCD for many decades. His work deeply influenced both how we think about QCD and how we perform calculations in the theory. Below we describe the work in
two related research directions: the physics of parton saturation and proton spin at small $x$. Both developments would have been impossible without Lipatovs groundbreaking work. Saturation physics would not have happened without the Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL) equation. The recent progress in our theoretical understanding of the proton spin contribution coming from small-$x$ partons started with the seminal paper by Kirschner and Lipatov resumming double logarithms of energy in the Reggeon evolution.
We determine the small Bjorken $x$ asymptotics of the quark and gluon orbital angular momentum (OAM) distributions in the proton in the double-logarithmic approximation (DLA), which resums powers of $alpha_s ln^2 (1/x)$ with $alpha_s$ the strong coup
ling constant. Starting with the operator definitions for the quark and gluon OAM, we simplify them at small $x$, relating them, respectively, to the polarized dipole amplitudes for the quark and gluon helicities defined in our earlier works. Using the small-$x$ evolution equations derived for these polarized dipole amplitudes earlier we arrive at the following small-$x$ asymptotics of the quark and gluon OAM distributions in the large-$N_c$ limit: begin{align} L_{q + bar{q}} (x, Q^2) = - Delta Sigma (x, Q^2) sim left(frac{1}{x}right)^{frac{4}{sqrt{3}} , sqrt{frac{alpha_s , N_c}{2 pi}} }, L_G (x, Q^2) sim Delta G (x, Q^2) sim left(frac{1}{x}right)^{frac{13}{4 sqrt{3}} , sqrt{frac{alpha_s , N_c}{2 pi}}} . end{align}
We rederive the small-$x$ evolution equations governing quark helicity distribution in a proton using solely an operator-based approach. In our previous works on the subject, the evolution equations were derived using a mix of diagrammatic and operat
or-based methods. In this work, we re-derive the double-logarithmic small-$x$ evolution equations for quark helicity in terms of the polarized Wilson lines, the operators consisting of light-cone Wilson lines with one or two non-eikonal local operator insertions which bring in helicity dependence. For the first time we give explicit and complete expressions for the quark and gluon polarized Wilson line operators, including insertions of both the gluon and quark sub-eikonal operators. We show that the double-logarithmic small-$x$ evolution of the polarized dipole amplitude operators, made out of regular light-cone Wilson lines along with the polarized ones constructed here, reproduces the equations derived in our earlier works. The method we present here can be used as a template for determining the small-$x$ asymptotics of any transverse momentum-dependent (TMD) quark (or gluon) parton distribution functions (PDFs), and is not limited to helicity.
To understand the dynamics of thermalization in heavy ion collisions in the perturbative framework it is essential to first find corrections to the free-streaming classical gluon fields of the McLerran-Venugopalan model. The corrections that lead to
deviations from free streaming (and that dominate at late proper time) would provide evidence for the onset of isotropization (and, possibly, thermalization) of the produced medium. To find such corrections we calculate the late-time two-point Green function and the energy-momentum tensor due to a single $2 to 2$ scattering process involving two classical fields. To make the calculation tractable we employ the scalar $varphi^4$ theory instead of QCD. We compare our exact diagrammatic results for these quantities to those in kinetic theory and find disagreement between the two. The disagreement is in the dependence on the proper time $tau$ and, for the case of the two-point function, is also in the dependence on the space-time rapidity $eta$: the exact diagrammatic calculation is, in fact, consistent with the free streaming scenario. Kinetic theory predicts a build-up of longitudinal pressure, which, however, is not observed in the exact calculation. We conclude that we find no evidence for the beginning of the transition from the free-streaming classical fields to the kinetic theory description of the produced matter after a single $2 to 2$ rescattering.
We determine the small-$x$ asymptotics of the gluon helicity distribution in a proton at leading order in perturbative QCD at large $N_c$. To achieve this, we begin by evaluating the dipole gluon helicity TMD at small $x$. In the process we obtain an
interesting new result: in contrast to the unpolarized dipole gluon TMD case, the operator governing the small-$x$ behavior of the dipole gluon helicity TMD is different from the operator corresponding to the polarized dipole scattering amplitude (used in our previous work to determine the small-$x$ asymptotics of the quark helicity distribution). We then construct and solve novel small-$x$ large-$N_c$ evolution equations for the operator related to the dipole gluon helicity TMD. Our main result is the small-$x$ asymptotics for the gluon helicity distribution: $Delta G sim left( tfrac{1}{x} right)^{alpha_h^G}$ with $alpha_h^G = tfrac{13}{4 sqrt{3}} , sqrt{tfrac{alpha_s , N_c}{2 pi}} approx 1.88 , sqrt{tfrac{alpha_s , N_c}{2 pi}}$. We note that the power $alpha_h^G$ is approximately 20$%$ lower than the corresponding power $alpha_h^q$ for the small-$x$ asymptotics of the quark helicity distribution defined by $Delta q sim left( tfrac{1}{x} right)^{alpha_h^q}$ with $alpha_h^q = tfrac{4}{sqrt{3}} , sqrt{tfrac{alpha_s , N_c}{2 pi}} approx 2.31 , sqrt{tfrac{alpha_s , N_c}{2 pi}}$ found in our earlier work.
Perturbative QCD calculations in the light-cone gauge have long suffered from the ambiguity associated with the regularization of the poles in the gluon propagator. In this work we study sub-gauge conditions within the light-cone gauge corresponding
to several known ways of regulating the gluon propagator. Using the functional integral calculation of the gluon propagator, we rederive the known sub-gauge conditions for the theta-function gauges and identify the sub-gauge condition for the principal value (PV) regularization of the gluon propagators light-cone poles. The obtained sub-gauge condition for the PV case is further verified by a sample calculation of the classical Yang-Mills field of two collinear ultrarelativistic point color charges. Our method does not allow one to construct a sub-gauge condition corresponding to the well-known Mandelstam-Leibbrandt prescription for regulating the gluon propagator poles.
We calculate the classical single-gluon production amplitude in nucleus-nucleus collisions including the first saturation correction in one of the nuclei (the projectile) while keeping multiple-rescattering (saturation) corrections to all orders in t
he other nucleus (the target). In our approximation only two nucleons interact in the projectile nucleus: the single-gluon production amplitude we calculate is order-g^3 and is leading-order in the atomic number of the projectile, while resumming all order-one saturation corrections in the target nucleus. Our result is the first step towards obtaining an analytic expression for the first projectile saturation correction to the gluon production cross section in nucleus-nucleus collisions.
We obtain a simple analytic expression for the high energy $gamma^* gamma^*$ scattering cross section at the next-to-leading order in the logarithms-of-energy power counting. To this end we employ the eigenfunctions of the NLO BFKL equation construct
ed in our previous paper. We also construct the eigenfunctions of the NNLO BFKL kernel and obtain a general form of the solution for the NNLO BFKL equation, which confirms the ansatz proposed in our previous paper.
