Coherent and incoherent diffractive hadron production in pA collisions and gluon saturation

Journal Article · Fri May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2009 · Physical Review. C, Nuclear Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVC.79.055206· OSTI ID:21293732

Tuchin, Kirill ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011 (United States)

We study coherent and incoherent diffractive hadron production in high-energy quarkonium-heavy nucleus collisions as a probe of the gluon saturation regime of quantum chromodynamics. Taking this process as a model for pA collisions, we argue that the coherent diffractive gluon production, in which the target nucleus stays intact, exhibits a remarkable sensitivity to the energy, rapidity, and atomic number dependence. The incoherent diffractive gluon production is less sensitive to the details of the low-x dynamics but can serve as a probe of fluctuations in the color glass condensate. As a quantitative measure of the nuclear effects on diffractive hadron production we introduce a new observable--the diffractive nuclear modification factor. We discuss possible signatures of gluon saturation in diffractive gluon production at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, the Large Hadron Collider, and Electron Ion Collider.

• OSTI ID: 21293732
• Journal Information: Physical Review. C, Nuclear Physics, Vol. 79, Issue 5; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevC.79.055206; (c) 2009 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2813
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
ATOMIC NUMBER
BROOKHAVEN RHIC
CERN LHC
COLOR MODEL
CONDENSATES
ELECTRONS
FLUCTUATIONS
GLUON CONDENSATION
GLUONS
HADRONS
HEAVY NUCLEI
ION-ATOM COLLISIONS
IONS
MODIFICATIONS
PARTICLE PRODUCTION
PARTICLE RAPIDITY
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS
QUARKONIUM
SATURATION
SENSITIVITY