arXiv subjects

Daniel Boer

Publications and source records attributed to Daniel Boer.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

J/psi-pair production at NLL in TMD factorisation at the LHC

J/psi-pair production at the LHC is currently one of the few tools available to probe gluon transverse momentum distributions (TMDs). In this context, data from LHCb in the collider mode have the potential to probe the evolution of the unpolarised-gluon TMDs and to measure the distribution of the linearly-polarised gluon in unpolarised protons for the first time. In this proceedings contribution, improved predictions obtained for the LHC (at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV) up to next-to-leading logarithm (NLL) in TMD factorisation are presented. We show the obtained predictions of transverse-momentum distributions at different invariant masses and rapidities computed in the LHCb acceptance along with PDF uncertainty. We predict the azimuthal modulations of the cross section that arise from linearly-polarised gluons.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

On the Rotational Invariance and Non-Invariance of Lepton Angular Distributions in Drell-Yan and Quarkonium Production

Several rotational invariant quantities for the lepton angular distributions in Drell-Yan and quarkonium production were derived several years ago, allowing the comparison between different experiments adopting different reference frames. Using an intuitive picture for describing the lepton angular distribution in these processes, we show how the rotational invariance of these quantities can be readily obtained. This approach can also be used to determine the rotational invariance or non-invariance of various quantities specifying the amount of violation for the Lam-Tung relation. While the violation of the Lam-Tung relation is often expressed by frame-dependent quantities, we note that alternative frame-independent quantities are preferred.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Suppression of maximal linear gluon polarization in angular asymmetries

We perform a phenomenological analysis of the $\cos 2 \phi $ azimuthal asymmetry in virtual photon plus jet production induced by the linear polarization of gluons in unpolarized $pA$ collisions. Although the linearly polarized gluon distribution becomes maximal at small $x$, TMD evolutionleads to a Sudakov suppression of the asymmetry with increasing invariant mass of the $\gamma^*$-jet pair. Employing a small-$x$ model input distribution, the asymmetry is found to be strongly suppressed under TMD evolution, but still remains sufficiently large to be measurable in the typical kinematical region accessible at RHIC or LHC at moderate photon virtuality, whereas it is expected to be negligible in $Z/W$-jet pair production at LHC. We point out the optimal kinematics for RHIC and LHC studies, in order to expedite the first experimental studies of the linearly polarized gluon distribution through this process. We further argue that this is a particularly clean process to test the $k_t$-resummation formalism in the small-$x$ regime.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Gluon transverse momentum dependent correlators in polarized high energy processes

We investigate the gluon transverse momentum dependent correlators as Fourier transform of matrix elements of nonlocal operator combinations. At the operator level these correlators include both field strength operators and gauge links bridging the nonlocality. In contrast to the collinear PDFs, the gauge links are no longer unique for transverse momentum dependent PDFs (TMDs) and also Wilson loops lead to nontrivial effects. We look at gluon TMDs for unpolarized, vector and tensor polarized targets. In particular a single Wilson loop operators become important when one considers the small-x limit of gluon TMDs.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Overview of TMD evolution

Transverse momentum dependent parton distributions (TMDs) appear in many scattering processes at high energy, from the semi-inclusive DIS experiments at a few GeV to the Higgs transverse momentum distribution at the LHC. Predictions for TMD observables crucially depend on TMD factorization, which in turn determines the TMD evolution of the observables with energy. In this contribution to SPIN2014 TMD factorization is outlined, including a discussion of the treatment of the nonperturbative region, followed by a summary of results on TMD evolution, mostly applied to azimuthal asymmetries.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Impact of gluon polarization on Higgs plus jet production at the LHC

In this paper we consider Higgs plus jet production as a process that is sensitive to the linear polarization of gluons inside the unpolarized protons of the LHC. The leading order expressions for the transverse momentum distribution of the Higgs plus jet pair are provided in terms of transverse momentum dependent quark and gluon distributions. This includes both angular independent and azimuthal angular dependent contributions, presented directly in the laboratory frame. Lacking experimental constraints on the linearly polarized gluon distribution, we study its effects on Higgs plus jet production using two different models to illustrate the generic features and maximal effects. It is found that the $\cos 2 \phi$ distribution may be the most promising observable, as it is driven by only one initial linearly polarized gluon. The potential advantages of the Higgs plus jet process compared to other processes sensitive to the linear polarization of gluons are discussed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Average transverse momentum quantities approaching the lightfront

In this contribution to Light Cone 2014, three average transverse momentum quantities are discussed: the Sivers shift, the dijet imbalance, and the $p_T$ broadening. The definitions of these quantities involve integrals over all transverse momenta that are overly sensitive to the region of large transverse momenta, which conveys little information about the transverse momentum distributions of quarks and gluons inside hadrons. TMD factorization naturally suggests alternative definitions of such integrated quantities, using Bessel-weighting and rapidity cut-offs, with the conventional definitions as limiting cases. The regularized quantities are given in terms of integrals over the TMDs of interest that are well-defined and moreover have the advantage of being amenable to lattice evaluations.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Viability of minimal left-right models with discrete symmetries

We provide a systematic study of minimal left-right models that are invariant under $P$, $C$, and/or $CP$ transformations. Due to the high amount of symmetry such models are quite predictive in the amount and pattern of $CP$ violation they can produce or accommodate at lower energies. Using current experimental constraints some of the models can already be excluded. For this purpose we provide an overview of the experimental constraints on the different left-right symmetric models, considering bounds from colliders, meson-mixing and low-energy observables, such as beta decay and electric dipole moments. The features of the various Yukawa and Higgs sectors are discussed in detail. In particular, we give the Higgs potentials for each case, discuss the possible vacua and investigate the amount of fine-tuning present in these potentials. It turns out that all left-right models with $P$, $C$, and/or $CP$ symmetry have a high degree of fine-tuning, unless supplemented with mechanisms to suppress certain parameters. The models that are symmetric under both $P$ and $C$ are not in accordance with present observations, whereas the models with either $P$, $C$, or $CP$ symmetry can not be excluded by data yet. To further constrain and discriminate between the models measurements of $B$-meson observables at LHCb and $B$-factories will be especially important, while measurements of the EDMs of light nuclei in particular could provide complementary tests of the LRMs.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

TMD evolution and the Higgs transverse momentum distribution

The effect of the linear polarization of gluons on the transverse momentum distribution in Higgs production is studied within the framework of TMD factorization. For this purpose we consider the TMD evolution for general colorless scalar boson production, from the lower mass $C$-even scalar quarkonium states $\chi_{c0}$ and $\chi_{b0}$ to the Higgs mass scale. In the absence of an intrinsic nonperturbative linearly polarized gluon distribution the results correspond to the CSS formalism, indicating a rather rapid decrease with increasing energy scale. At the Higgs mass scale the contribution from linearly polarized gluons is in this case found to be on the percent level, somewhat larger than an earlier finding in the literature. At the lower mass scale of quarkonium states $\chi_{c0}$ and $\chi_{b0}$ we find contributions at the 15-70% level, albeit with considerable uncertainty. In the presence of an intrinsic linear gluon polarization, percent level effects are also found at the Higgs mass scale, but with a considerably slower evolution. Although these results were obtained using a model for the TMDs that are approximately Gaussian at small transverse momenta and have the correct perturbative power law fall off at large transverse momenta, it illustrates well the differences that can exist between results obtained from a TMD formalism as compared to a CSS formalism. The behavior of the TMDs at small $p_T$ can affect the results for all transverse momenta of the produced boson, even for a particle as heavy as the Higgs. The TMD evolution from $\chi_{c0}$ to $\chi_{b0}$ may be used to constrain the nonperturbative contributions and improve on the prediction of the effect at the Higgs mass scale.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Aspects of TMD evolution of azimuthal asymmetries

In this contribution TMD evolution of azimuthal asymmetries, in particular of the Sivers and double Collins asymmetries, is addressed. A comparison of the scale dependence is made between asymmetries described with TMD factorization at low transverse momentum and those described with collinear factorization at high transverse momentum. Finally, the advantages of Bessel weighting are discussed: convergence of transverse momentum integrals, suppression of large transverse momentum contributions, and well-defined lattice QCD evaluations of Bessel-weighted TMDs including proper gauge links.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Linear polarization of gluons and photons in unpolarized collider experiments

We study azimuthal asymmetries in heavy quark pair production in unpolarized electron-proton and proton-proton collisions, where the asymmetries originate from the linear polarization of gluons inside unpolarized hadrons. We provide cross section expressions and study the maximal asymmetries allowed by positivity, for both charm and bottom quark pair production. The upper bounds on the asymmetries are shown to be very large depending on the transverse momentum of the heavy quarks, which is promising especially for their measurements at a possible future Electron-Ion Collider or a Large Hadron electron Collider. We also study the analogous processes and asymmetries in muon pair production as a means to probe linearly polarized photons inside unpolarized protons. For increasing invariant mass of the muon pair the asymmetries become very similar to the heavy quark pair ones. Finally, we discuss the process dependence of the results that arises due to differences in color flow and address the problem with factorization in case of proton-proton collisions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

TMD evolution of the Sivers asymmetry

The energy scale dependence of the Sivers asymmetry in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering is studied numerically within the framework of TMD factorization that was put forward in 2011. The comparison to previous results in the literature shows that the treatment of next-to-leading logarithmic effects is important for the fall-off of the Sivers asymmetry with energy in the measurable regime. The TMD factorization based approach indicates that the peak of the Sivers asymmetry falls off with energy scale Q to good approximation as 1/Q^{0.7}, somewhat faster than found previously based on the first TMD factorization expressions by Collins and Soper in 1981. It is found that the peak of the asymmetry moves rather slowly towards higher transverse momentum values as $Q$ increases, which may be due to the absence of perturbative tails of the TMDs in the presented treatments. We conclude that the behavior of the peak of the asymmetry as a function of energy {\it and} transverse momentum allows for valuable tests of the TMD formalism and the considered approximations. To confront the TMD approach with experiment, high energy experimental data from an Electron-Ion Collider is required.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Determining the Higgs spin and parity in the diphoton decay channel

We calculate the diphoton distribution in the decay of arbitrary spin-0 and spin-2 bosons produced from gluon fusion, taking into account the fact that gluons inside an unpolarized proton are generally linearly polarized. The gluon polarization brings about a difference in the transverse momentum distribution of positive and negative parity states. At the same time, it causes the azimuthal distribution of the photon pair to be non-isotropic for several spin-2 coupling hypotheses, allowing one to distinguish these from the isotropic scalar and pseudoscalar distributions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Polarized gluon studies with charmonium and bottomonium at LHCb and AFTER

Recently it has been put forward that linearly polarized gluons inside unpolarized protons affect the transverse momentum distribution of final state particles in hadronic collisions. They lead to a characteristic modulation of the differential cross section in Higgs production and to azimuthal asymmetries in, for instance, heavy quark pair production. Here we study the effect on charmonium and bottomonium production in hadronic collisions, such as at LHCb and at the proposed fixed target experiment AFTER at LHC. We focus mainly on the scalar and pseudoscalar quarkonia, eta_c, chi_{c0}, eta_b, chi_{b0}, which allow for an angular independent investigation. Within the framework of transverse momentum dependent factorization in combination with the nonrelativistic QCD based color-singlet quarkonium model, we show for small transverse momentum (q_T^2 \ll 4 M_Q^2) that the scalar and pseudoscalar quarkonium production cross sections are modified in different ways by linearly polarized gluons, while their effects on the production of higher angular momentum quarkonium states are strongly suppressed. Comparisons to chi_{c2}, chi_{b2} production can help to cancel out uncertainties. Together with the analogous study in Higgs production at LHC, quarkonium production can moreover be used to test the scale dependence of the linearly polarized gluon distribution over a large energy range.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Asymmetric parton distributions of the nucleon

This contribution to CIPANP 2012 highlights what we have learned about the asymmetric parton distributions of the nucleon over the past 20 years. These distributions include the transverse momentum dependent parton distributions describing spin-orbit correlations, but also their generalized parton and Wigner distribution analogues. Besides quark distributions, also gluon distributions are discussed, in particular the distribution of linearly polarized gluons inside unpolarized nucleons and its applications, such as at LHC in Higgs production and at a future Electron-Ion Collider in heavy quark production.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Bessel-weighted asymmetries and the Sivers effect

We consider the cross section in Fourier space, conjugate to the outgoing hadron's transverse momentum, where convolutions of transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions and fragmentation functions become simple products. Individual asymmetric terms in the cross section can be projected out by means of a generalized set of weights involving Bessel functions. Advantages of employing these Bessel weights are that they suppress (divergent) contributions from high transverse momentum and that soft factors cancel in (Bessel-) weighted asymmetries. Also, the resulting compact expressions immediately connect to previous work on evolution equations for transverse momentum dependent parton distribution and fragmentation functions and to quantities accessible in lattice QCD. Bessel-weighted asymmetries are thus model independent observables that augment the description and our understanding of correlations of spin and momentum in nucleon structure.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Linearly polarized Gluons and the Higgs Transverse Momentum Distribution

We investigate the possible role of linearly polarized gluons in Higgs production from unpolarized pp collisions. The transverse momentum distribution of the produced Higgs boson is found to exhibit a modulation with respect to the naive, unpolarized expectation, with the sign depending on the parity of the Higgs boson. The transverse momentum distribution of a scalar Higgs will, therefore, have a shape clearly different from a pseudoscalar Higgs. We suggest that this effect can be used to determine the parity of the Higgs at the LHC, without the need to use challenging angular distributions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Linearly Polarized Gluons and the Higgs Transverse Momentum Distribution

We study how gluons carrying linear polarization inside an unpolarized hadron contribute to the transverse momentum distribution of Higgs bosons produced in hadronic collisions. They modify the distribution produced by unpolarized gluons in a characteristic way that could be used to determine whether the Higgs boson is a scalar or a pseudoscalar particle.

hep-ph↗