Generalised parton distributions: low-energy nucleon structure in pp collisions at LHC

Conference · Fri Apr 01 04:00:00 EDT 2011

OSTI ID:1995407

Weiss, Christian

The transverse spatial distributions of quarks and gluons in a fast-moving nucleon (generalized parton distributions, or GPDs) have emerged as a key concept in nucleon structure and the theory of high-momentum-transfer processes in QCD. Information on the transverse distribution of partons comes from the form factors of elastic eN scattering and hard exclusive processes such as meson/photon production, and can be related to traditional notions of hadronic structure such as the "pion cloud"and vector meson exchange. This information plays a crucial role in the analysis of pp collisions at the LHC, where it determines the structure of the underlying event in collisions with hard parton-parton processes (multiplicities, energy flow, multiparton processes). Recent results from CMS and ATLAS are naturally explained by a geometric picture based on the transverse parton distributions extracted from ep/gamma-p scattering data. The presentation aims to give a brief overview of the basic concepts and future directions in this new field of study.

• Research Organization: Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, VA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-06OR23177
• OSTI ID: 1995407
• Report Number(s): JLAB-THY-11-1596; DOE/OR/23177-6990
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English