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Alex Kovner

Publications and source records attributed to Alex Kovner.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

QCD unitarity constraints on Reggeon Field Theory

We point out that the $s$-channel unitarity of QCD imposes meaningful constraints on a possible form of the QCD Reggeon Field Theory. We show that neither the BFKL nor JIMWLK nor Braun's Hamiltonian satisfy the said constraints. In a toy, zero transverse dimensional case we construct a model that satisfies the analogous constraint and show that at infinite energy it indeed tends to a "black disk limit" as opposed to the model with triple Pomeron vertex only, routinely used as a toy model in the literature.

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Photons without vector fields

In this note we continue to pursue the question whether gauge theories can be represented in terms of effective "scalar" degrees of freedom. We provide such a consistent representation for a free photon theory in 3+1 dimensions. Building on results of [1] we construct a Lagrangian with a four derivative kinetic term, and demonstrate that despite seeming nonlinearity of the theory it is equivalent to a theory of a free photon.

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Heavy quarks in proton-nucleus collisions - the hybrid formalism

We explore the quark mass effects on inclusive hadron production in proton-nucleus collisions at high energies. We consider two processes. First, we compute the single inclusive cross-section for production of hadrons with open heavy flavour in the proton forward direction at leading order. Next, in the same kinematics, we calculate the heavy-quark contribution to single inclusive production of light or unidentified hadrons at next-to-leading-order. For both studies we exploit the hybrid formalism, that is the collinear factorisation on the proton side while high-density and high-energy effects are resummed on the side of the nucleus.

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Bose enhancement and the ridge

We point out that Bose enhancement in a hadronic wave function generically leads to correlations between produced particles. We show explicitly, by calculating the projectile density matrix in the Color Glass Condensate approach to high-energy hadronic collisions, that the Bose enhancement of gluons in the projectile leads to azimuthal collimation of long range rapidity correlations of the produced particles, the so-called ridge correlations.

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Di-photon "Ridge" in p+p and p+A collisions at RHIC and the LHC

We obtain prompt di-photon cross-section in proton-nucleus collisions in Hamiltonian light-cone approach within a hybrid approximation, treating the projectile proton in the parton model and the target nucleus in the Color-Glass-Condensate approach. We study in details the di-photon correlations in quark-nucleus and proton-nucleus collisions at RHIC and the LHC. We show that the single fragmentation di-photon produces the away side correlations peak, and the double fragmentation component of prompt di-photon is responsible for the near-side peak, and the long-range in rapidity near-side azimuthal collimation, the so-called "ridge" structure. We study the transverse momentum, density and energy dependence of the di-photon ridge and show that it strongly depends on the kinematics and saturation dynamics. We show that while di-photon ridge exists at the LHC in quark-nucleus collisions, the effect disappears in proton-nucleus collisions at the LHC. At RHIC the ridge-type structure persists at low transverse momenta of di-photon even in proton-nucleus collisions. We argue that di-photon correlation measurments in p+A collisions can help to discriminate among models and understand the true origin of the observed di-hadron ridge in p+A collisions. We also show that in addition to the ridge structure, prompt di-photon correlation also exhibits some distinct novel features, including the emergence of away side double-peak structure at intermediate transverse momenta.

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Entanglement entropy and entropy production in the Color Glass Condensate framework

We compute the entanglement entropy of soft gluons in the wave function of a fast moving hadron and discuss its basic properties. We also derive the expression for entropy production in a high energy hadronic collision within the Color Glass formalism. We show that long range rapidity correlations give negative contribution to the production entropy. We calculate the (naturally defined) temperature of the produced system of particles, and show that it is proportional to the average transverse momentum of the produced particles.

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Single-inclusive particle production in proton-nucleus collisions at next-to-leading order in the hybrid formalism

We reconsider the perturbative next-to-leading calculation of the single inclusive hadron production in the framework of the hybrid formalism, applied to hadron production in proton-nucleus collisions. Our analysis, performed in the wave function approach, differs from the previous works in three points. First, we are careful to specify unambiguously the rapidity interval that has to be included in the evolution of the leading-order eikonal scattering amplitude. This is important, since varying this interval by a number of order unity changes the next-to-leading order correction that the calculation is meant to determine. Second, we introduce the explicit requirement that fast fluctuations in the projectile wave function which only exist for a short time are not resolved by the target. This Ioffe time cutoff also strongly affects the next-to-leading order terms. Third, our result does not employ the approximation of a large number of colors. Our final expressions are unambiguous and do not coincide at next-to-leading order with the results available in the literature.

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Diphoton production in high-energy p+A collisions

We consider semi-inclusive diphoton+jet and inclusive diphoton production in high-energy proton-nucleus collisions, treating the target nucleus as a Color-Glass-Condensate and the projectile proton in the parton model. We obtain the prompt diphoton production cross-section in terms of fragmentation and direct contributions. The fragmentation part is given in terms of single-photon and double-photon fragmentation functions. We study prompt, direct and fragmentation diphoton correlations in p+p and p+A collisions at the LHC, and show that at low values of transverse momenta of the produced photon pair, these correlations are sensitive to saturation effects. We show that back-to-back (de)-correlations in prompt diphoton production are stronger in fragmentation part than in the direct one.

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NLO JIMWLK evolution unabridged

In Ref. [1] we presented the JIMWLK Hamiltonian for high energy evolution of QCD amplitudes at the next-to-leading order accuracy in $α_s$. In the present paper we provide details of our original derivation, which was not reported in [1], and provide the Hamiltonian in the form appropriate for action on color singlet as well as color nonsinglet states. The rapidity evolution of the quark dipole generated by this Hamiltonian is computed and compared with the corresponding result of Balitsky and Chirilli [2]. We then establish the equivalence between the NLO JIMWLK Hamiltonian and the NLO version of the Balitsky's hierarchy [3], which includes action on nonsinglet combinations of Wilson lines. Finally, we present complete evolution equation for three-quark Wilson loop operator, thus extending the results of Grabovsky [4].

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Jalilian-Marian, Iancu, McLerran, Weigert, Leonidov, Kovner evolution at next to leading order

The Jalilian-Marian,Iancu, McLerran, Weigert, Leonidov, Kovner (JIMWLK) Hamiltonian for high energy evolution of QCD amplitudes is presented at the next-to-leading order accuracy in $α_s$. The form of the Hamiltonian is deduced from the symmetries and the structure of the hadronic light cone wavefunction and by comparing the rapidity evolution of the quark dipole and the three-quark singlet states with results available in the literature. The next-to-leading corrections should allow for more robust phenomenological applications of perturbative saturation approach.

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Conformal Gravity Redux: Ghost-turned-Tachyon

We analyze conformal gravity in translationally invariant approximation, where the metric is taken to depend on time but not on spatial coordinates. We find that the field mode which in perturbation theory has a ghostlike kinetic term, turns into a tachyon when nonlinear interaction is accounted for. The kinetic term and potential for this mode have opposite signs. Solutions of nonlinear classical equations of motion develop a singularity in finite time determined by the initial conditions.

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KLWMIJ Reggeon Field Theory beyond the large $N_c$ limit

We extend the analysis of KLWMIJ evolution in terms of QCD Reggeon fields beyond leading order in the $1/N_c$ expansion. We show that there is only one type of corrections to the leading order Hamiltonian discussed in \cite{last}. These are terms linear in original Reggeons and quadratic in conjugate Reggeon operators. All of these have the interpretation as vertices of the "`merging"' type $2\rightarrow 1$, where two Reggeons merge into one. Importantly, the triple Pomeron merging vertex does not emerge from the KLWMIJ Hamiltonian. We show that, although in the range of applicability of the KLWMIJ Hamiltonian these merging terms are subleading in $N_c$, in the dense-dense regime they all become of the same (leading) order in $N_c$. In this regime vertices involving higher Reggeons are enhanced by inverse powers of the coupling constant.

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Reggeon Field Theory for Large Pomeron Loops

We analyze the range of applicability of the high energy Reggeon Field Theory $H_{RFT}$ derived in [1]. We show that this theory is valid as long as at any intermediate value of rapidity $η$ throughout the evolution at least one of the colliding objects is dilute. Importantly, at some values of $η$ the dilute object could be the projectile, while at others it could be the target, so that $H_{RFT}$ does not reduce to either $H_{JIMWLK}$ or $H_{KLWMIJ}$. When both objects are dense, corrections to the evolution not accounted for in [1] become important. The same limitation applies to other approaches to high energy evolution available today, such as for example [3] and [4]. We also show that, in its regime of applicability $H_{RFT}$ can be simplified. We derive the simpler version of $H_{RFT}$ and in the large $N_c$ limit rewrite it in terms of the Reggeon creation and annihilation operators. The resulting $H_{RFT}$ is explicitly self dual and provides the generalization of the Pomeron calculus developed in [4] by including higher Reggeons in the evolution. It is applicable for description of `large' Pomeron loops, namely Reggeon graphs where all the splittings occur close in rapidity to one dilute object (projectile), while all the merging close to the other one (target). Additionally we derive, in the same regime expressions for single and double inclusive gluon production (where the gluons are not separated by a large rapidity interval) in terms of the Reggeon degrees of freedom.

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Conformal symmetry of JIMWLK Evolution at NLO

We construct the Next to Leading Order JIMWLK Hamiltonian for high energy evolution in ${\cal N}=4$ SUSY theory, and show that it possesses conformal invariance, even though it is derived using sharp cutoff on rapidity variable. The conformal transformation properties of Wilson lines are not quite the naive ones, but at NLO acquire an additional anomalous piece. We construct explicitly the inversion symmetry generator. We also show how to construct for every operator $O$, including the Hamiltonian itself, its "conformal extension" $\cal O$, such that it transforms under the inversion in the naive way.

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The Curious Case of an Effective Theory

We describe an effective theory of a scalar field, motivated by some features expected in the low energy theory of gluodynamics in 3+1 dimensions. The theory describes two propagating massless particles in a certain limit, which we identify with the Abelian QED limit, and has classical string solutions in the general case. The string solutions are somewhat unusual as they are multiply degenerate due to spontaneous breaking of diffeomorphism invariance. Nevertheless all solutions yield identical electric field and have the same string tension.

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Some Comments on Ghosts and Unitarity: The Pais-Uhlenbeck Oscillator Revisited

We give a simple discussion of ghosts, unitarity violation, negative norm states and quantum vs classical behavior in the simplest model with four derivative action - the Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator. We also point out that the normalizable "vacuum state" (in the sense defined below) of this model can be understood as spontaneous breaking of the emergent conformal symmetry. We provide an example of an interacting system that couples the "particle" and "ghost" degrees of freedom and nevertheless remains unitary on both classical and quantum level.

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Angular and long range rapidity correlations in particle production at high energy

We discuss the general mechanism leading to long-range rapidity and angular correlations produced in high energy collisions (the "ridge"). This effect naturally appears in the high energy QCD and is strongly sensitive to physics of the gluon saturation. We comment on various recent practical realizations of the main idea, paying special attention to $N_c$ counting and stress the relevance of Pomeron loops.

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On Angular Correlations and High Energy Evolution

We address the question to what extent JIMWLK evolution is capable of taking into account angular correlations in a high energy hadronic wave function. Our conclusion is that angular (and indeed other) correlations in the wave function cannot be reliably calculated without taking into account Pomeron loops in the evolution. As an example we study numerically the energy evolution of angular correlations between dipole scattering amplitudes in the framework of the large $N_c$ approximation to JIMWLK evolution (the "`projectile dipole model"'). Target correlations are introduced via averaging over (isotropic) ensemble of anisotropic initial conditions. We find that correlations disappear very quickly with rapidity even inside the saturation radius. This is in accordance with our physical picture of JIMWLK evolution. The actual correlations inside the saturation radius in the target QCD wave function, on the other hand should remain sizable at any rapidity.

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