arXiv subjects

Edmond Iancu

Publications and source records attributed to Edmond Iancu.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

TMD factorization in diffractive heavy-quark production in photon-nucleus collisions

Using the Colour Glass Condensate effective theory, we study the diffractive production of a massive quark-antiquark pair accompanied by a gluon in coherent photon-nucleus collisions at high energy. This partonic configuration provides the leading twist contribution to the cross section in the correlation limit where two of the partons are hard and nearly back to back in the transverse plane, while the third one is semi-hard, with a transverse momentum of the order of the nuclear saturation momentum. We consider two scenarios: (i) a hard quark-antiquark pair together with a semi-hard gluon; in this case we demonstrate transverse momentum dependent (TMD) factorization with a mass-dependent ''hard'' factor and the standard expression for the gluon diffractive TMD, and (ii) a hard antiquark-gluon pair and a semi-hard quark; in this case we find TMD factorization with a mass-independent ''hard'' factor and a mass-dependent quark diffractive TMD, which represents a new result. We show that increasing the quark mass reduces (or even washes out) the effects of gluon saturation on the quark diffractive TMD. In particular, it leads to the suppression of the Cronin peak that we observe in the massless limit. Our results are the basis for future phenomenological studies of quarkonium and open charm production in the saturation regime in ultraperipheral collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, and in deep inelastic scattering at the Electron-Ion Collider.

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arXiv2025

Gluon splitting at small $x$: a unified derivation for the JIMWLK, DGLAP and CSS equations

We revisit the calculation of the next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections to dijet production in electron-ion collisions at small $x$. We focus on the back-to-back configuration where the relative transverse momentum $P_\perp$ of the measured jets is much larger than both their momentum imbalance $K_\perp$ and the target saturation momentum $Q_s(x,A)$. In this regime, we present for the first time a complete calculation of the real NLO corrections at leading power in $1/P_\perp$. Our result exhibits TMD factorisation, with the same hard factor as at tree-level and a NLO correction to the Weisz\"acker-Williams (WW) gluon transverse momentum dependent (TMD) distribution which involves four Wilson-line operators. By studying different kinematical regimes for $K_\perp$ and for the radiated gluon, we recover all the quantum evolutions that were previously identified for this process at NLO: the B-JIMWLK high-energy evolution and the CSS evolution of the gluon WW TMD, and the DGLAP evolution of the gluon PDF. When both $K_\perp$ and the transverse momentum transferred by the target are large compared to $Q_s$, all the Wilson-line operators boil down to the unintegrated gluon distribution and our NLO result for the gluon TMD can be used to isolate the transverse-momentum dependent gluon splitting function.

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arXiv2025

Unveiling the sea: universality of the transverse momentum dependent quark distributions at small $x$

Within the Colour Glass Condensate effective theory, we demonstrate that back-to-back dijet correlations in dilute-dense collisions involving a small-$x$ quark from the nuclear target can be factorised in terms of universal transverse momentum dependent distributions (TMDs) for the sea quarks. Two building blocks are needed to construct all these TMDs at the operator level: the sea quark TMD operator which appears in semi-inclusive Deep-Inelastic Scattering (SIDIS) or in the Drell-Yan process and the elastic $S$-matrix for a quark-antiquark dipole. Compared to SIDIS, the saturation effects are stronger for dijet production in forward proton-nucleus collisions, due to additional scattering in the initial and final state, effectively resulting in a larger value for the nuclear saturation momentum.

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arXiv2024

Jet Definition and Transverse-Momentum-Dependent Factorization in Semi-Inclusive Deep-Inelastic Scattering

Using the colour dipole picture of Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) and the Colour Glass Condensate effective theory, we study semi-inclusive jet production in DIS at small $x$ in the limit where the photon virtuality $Q^2$ is much larger than the transverse momentum squared $P_\perp^2$ of the produced jet. In this limit, the cross-section is dominated by aligned jet configurations, that is, quark-antiquark pairs in which one of the fermions -- the would-be struck quark in the Breit frame -- carries most of the longitudinal momentum of the virtual photon. We show that physically meaningful jet definitions in DIS are such that the effective axis of the jet sourced by the struck quark is controlled by its virtuality rather than by its transverse momentum. For such jet definitions, we show that the next-to-leading order (NLO) cross-section admits factorisation in terms of the (sea) quark transverse momentum dependent (TMD) distribution, which in turn satisfies a universal Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi and Sudakov evolution.

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arXiv2024

Evolution of the transverse-momentum dependent gluon distribution at small $x$

Using the colour dipole picture for photon-nucleus interactions at small $x$ together with the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) effective theory, we demonstrate that the next-to-leading (NLO) order corrections to the cross-section for the inclusive production of a pair of hard jets encode not only the JIMWLK evolution with decreasing $x$, but also the DGLAP evolution of the gluon distribution function and the CSS evolution of the gluon transverse momentum dependent (TMD) distribution. The emergent CSS equation takes the form of a rate equation describing the evolution of the dijet distribution in the transverse momentum imbalance $K_\perp$ when increasing the dijet relative momentum $P_\perp$. All three types of evolution become important when both $P_\perp$ and $K_\perp$ are much larger than the nuclear saturation momentum $Q_s(x)$ and we propose a framework which encompasses all of them. The solution to the JIMWLK equation provides the source term for the DGLAP evolution with increasing $K_\perp$, which in turn generates the initial condition for the CSS evolution with increasing $P_\perp$.

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arXiv2023

Jet polarisation in an anisotropic medium

We study the evolution of an energetic jet which propagates in an anisotropic quark-gluon plasma, as created in the intermediate stages of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We argue that the partons of the jet should acquire a non-zero average polarisation proportional to the medium anisotropy. We first observe that the medium anisotropy introduces a difference between the rates for transverse momentum broadening along the two directions perpendicular to the jet axis. In turn, this difference leads to a polarisation-dependent bias in the BDMPS-Z rates for medium-induced gluon branching. Accordingly, the daughter gluons in a branching process can carry net polarisation even if their parent gluon was unpolarised. Using these splitting rates, we construct kinetic equations which describe the production and transmission of polarisation via multiple branching in an anisotropic medium. The solutions to these equations show that polarisation is efficiently produced via quasi-democratic branchings, but then it is rapidly washed out by the subsequent branchings, due to the inability of soft gluons to keep trace of the polarisation of their parents. Based on that, we conclude that a net polarisation for the jet should survive in the final state if and only if the medium anisotropy is sizeable as the jet escapes the medium.

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arXiv2022

Dihadron production in DIS at NLO: the real corrections

By using the formalism of the light-cone wave function along with the colour glass condensate effective theory, we consider next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections to the production of a pair of hadrons in electron-proton, or electron-nucleus, collisions at small Bjorken $x$. To the order of interest, the process involves the fluctuation of a virtual photon into a quark-antiquark pair, followed by the emission of a gluon from either the quark, or the antiquark. For the case of a virtual photon with transverse polarization, we compute the real NLO corrections, where the emitted gluon is present in the final state. We first compute the tree-level cross-section for the production of the quark-antiquark-gluon system and then deduce the real NLO corrections to dihadron production by integrating out the kinematics of the gluon. We verify in detail that, in the limit where the gluon is soft, our calculation reproduces the (real piece of the) B-JIMWLK evolution of the leading-order cross-section for quark-antiquark production. Similarly, in the limit where the gluon is collinear with its emitter, we recover the real terms in the DGLAP evolution of the fragmentation function. The virtual NLO corrections to dihadron production will be presented by one of us in a subsequent publication.

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arXiv2020

Jet radiation in a longitudinally expanding medium

In a series of previous papers, we have presented a new approach, based on perturbative QCD, for the evolution of a jet in a dense quark-gluon plasma. In the original formulation, the plasma was assumed to be homogeneous and static. In this work, we extend our description and its Monte Carlo implementation to a plasma obeying Bjorken longitudinal expansion. Our key observation is that the factorisation between vacuum-like and medium-induced emissions, derived in the static case, still holds for an expanding medium, albeit with modified rates for medium-induced emissions and transverse momentum broadening, and with a modified phase-space for vacuum-like emissions. We highlight a scaling relation valid for the energy spectrum of medium-induced emissions, through which the case of an expanding medium is mapped onto an effective static medium. We find that scaling violations due to vacuum-like emissions and transverse momentum broadening are numerically small. Our new predictions for the nuclear modification factor for jets $R_{AA}$, the in-medium fragmentation functions, and substructure distributions are very similar to our previous estimates for a static medium, maintaining the overall good qualitative agreement with existing LHC measurements. In the case of $R_{AA}$, we find that the agreement with the data is significantly improved at large transverse momenta $p_T\gtrsim 500$ GeV after including the effects of the nuclear parton distribution functions.

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arXiv2020

Forward dijets in proton-nucleus collisions at next-to-leading order: the real corrections

Using the CGC effective theory together with the hybrid factorisation, we study forward dijet production in proton-nucleus collisions beyond leading order. In this paper, we compute the "real" next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections, i.e. the radiative corrections associated with a three-parton final state, out of which only two are being measured. To that aim, we start by revisiting our previous results for the three-parton cross-section presented in our previous paper. After some reshuffling of terms, we deduce new expressions for these results, which not only look considerably simpler, but are also physically more transparent. We also correct several errors in this process. The real NLO corrections to inclusive dijet production are then obtained by integrating out the kinematics of any of the three final partons. We explicitly work out the interesting limits where the unmeasured parton is either a soft gluon, or the product of a collinear splitting. We find the expected results in both limits: the B-JIMWLK evolution of the leading-order dijet cross-section in the first case (soft gluon) and, respectively, the DGLAP evolution of the initial and final states in the second case (collinear splitting). The "virtual" NLO corrections to dijet production will be presented in a subsequent publication.

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arXiv2020

Jet fragmentation function in heavy-ion collisions

We study the fragmentation function of jets propagating through a dense quark-gluon plasma within perturbative QCD. Our results for its nuclear modification factor are in qualitative agreement with the experimental data in Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC. In particular, we reproduce the enhancements seen in the data at both relatively soft and relatively large transverse momenta, with clear physical interpretations. The perturbative predictions however are quite sensitive to the value of the infrared cutoff mimicking the confinement scale, due to the fact that the fragmentation function is not an infrared safe quantity. To remedy this, we propose a new observable -- the (primary) subjet fragmentation function -- which is infrared safe and has features similar to the fragmentation function. We provide predictions for this observable in the vacuum and in heavy-ion collisions that could be tested against the experimental data.

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arXiv2020

Probing Nucleons and Nuclei in High Energy Collisions

This volume is a collection of contributions for the 7-week program "Probing Nucleons and Nuclei in High Energy Collisions" that was held at the Institute for Nuclear Theory in Seattle, WA, USA, from October 1 until November 16, 2018. The program was dedicated to the physics of the Electron Ion Collider (EIC), the world's first polarized electron-nucleon (ep) and electron-nucleus (eA) collider to be constructed in the USA. These proceedings are organized by chapters, corresponding to the weeks of the program: Week I, Generalized parton distributions; Week II, Transverse spin and TMDs; Week III, Longitudinal spin; Week IV, Symposium week; Weeks V & VI, eA collisions; Week VII, pA and AA collisions. We hope these proceedings will be useful to readers as a compilation of EIC-related science at the end of the second decade of the XXI century.

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arXiv2020

Nuclear effects on jet substructure observables at the LHC

Using a pQCD picture for jet evolution in a dense QCD medium, in which medium-induced parton branchings are factorized from vacuum-like emissions, we study two jet substructure observables: the $z_g$ and the Soft Drop multiplicity distributions. We compute the respective nuclear modification factors using a Monte-Carlo implementation of the parton showers. Our results are in qualitative agreement with LHC data for Pb+Pb collisions. We identify the physical mechanisms explaining our results: incoherent jet energy loss, semi-hard medium-induced emissions and the bias introduced by the steeply falling jet spectrum.

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arXiv2019

Deciphering the $z_g$ distribution in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions

Within perturbative QCD, we develop a new picture for the parton shower generated by a jet propagating through a dense quark-gluon plasma. This picture combines in a simple, factorised, way multiple medium-induced parton branchings and standard vacuum-like emissions, with the phase-space for the latter constrained by the presence of the medium. We implement this picture as a Monte Carlo generator that we use to study two phenomenologically important observables: the jet nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$ and the $z_g$ distribution reflecting the jet substructure. In both cases, the outcome of our Monte Carlo simulations is in good agreement with the LHC measurements. We provide basic analytic calculations that help explaining the main features observed in the data. We find that the energy loss by the jet is increasing with the jet transverse momentum, due to a rise in the number of partonic sources via vacuum-like emissions. This is a key element in our description of both $R_{AA}$ and the $z_g$ distribution. For the latter, we identify two main nuclear effects: incoherent jet energy loss and hard medium-induced emissions. As the jet transverse momentum increases, we predict a qualitative change in the ratio between the $z_g$ distributions in PbPb and pp collisions: from increasing at small $z_g$, this ratio becomes essentially flat, or even slightly decreasing.

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arXiv2018

Jet quenching parameter in an expanding QCD plasma

We present a new definition of the jet quenching parameter $\hat{q}$ in a weakly-coupled quark-gluon plasma undergoing boost-invariant longitudinal expansion. We propose a boost-invariant definition of $\hat{q}$, which is proportional to the broadening of the angular variables $η$ (the pseudo-rapidity) and $ϕ$ (the azimuthal angle). We furthermore consider radiative corrections to $\hat{q}$ and find potentially large corrections enhanced by a double logarithm like the case of a static medium. But unlike for the static medium, these corrections are now local in (proper) time.

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arXiv2018

A new pQCD based Monte Carlo event generator for jets in the quark-gluon plasma

A main difficulty in understanding the dynamics of jets produced in the high-density environment of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collision, is to provide a unified description for the two sources of radiation that are a priori expected: the "vacuum-like" emissions responsible for the parton shower from large virtualities down to the hadronisation scale and the "medium-induced" emissions responsible for the energy loss by the jet. In the recent paper arXiv:1801.09703, we demonstrated that these two mechanisms can be factorized from each other within a controlled, "double-logarithmic" approximation in perturbative QCD. In this proceeding we recall the main features of the jet evolution in a dense QCD medium. We emphasize that the in-medium parton showers differ from those in the vacuum in two crucial aspects: their phase-space is reduced and the first emission outside the medium can violate angular ordering. Based on this factorized picture, which is Markovian, we have recently developed a Monte Carlo event generator which includes both vacuum-like and medium-induced emissions and goes beyond the double logarithmic approximation. We here present our first results for the fragmentation function and the energy loss by the jet.

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arXiv2018

Jet fragmentation in a dense QCD medium

We study the fragmentation of a jet propagating in a dense quark-gluon plasma. Using a leading, double-logarithmic approximation in perturbative QCD, we compute for the first time the effects of the medium on the vacuum-like emissions. We show that, due to the scatterings off the plasma, the in-medium parton showers differ from the vacuum ones in two crucial aspects: their phase-space is reduced and the first emission outside the medium can violate angular ordering. We compute the jet fragmentation function and find results in qualitative agreement with measurements at the LHC.

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arXiv2018

Forward trijet production in proton-nucleus collisions

Using the formalism of the light-cone wave function in perturbative QCD together with the hybrid factorization, we compute the cross-section for three particle production at forward rapidities in proton-nucleus collisions. We focus on the quark channel, in which the three produced partons -- a quark accompanied by a gluon pair, or two quarks plus one antiquark -- are all generated via two successive splittings starting with a quark that was originally collinear with the proton. The three partons are put on-shell by their scattering off the nuclear target, described as a Lorentz-contracted "shockwave". The three-parton component of the quark light-cone wave function that we compute on this occasion is also an ingredient for other interesting calculations, like the next-to-leading order correction to the cross-section for the production of a pair of jets.

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arXiv2018

Jet quenching parameter in an expanding QCD plasma

We study the phenomenon of transverse momentum broadening for a high-$p_T$ parton propagating through a weakly-coupled quark-gluon plasma undergoing boost-invariant longitudinal expansion. We propose a boost-invariant description for this phenomenon, in which the broadening refers to the angular variables $η$ (the pseudo-rapidity) and $ϕ$ (the azimuthal angle). The jet quenching parameter $\hat{q}$ which enters this description depends upon the proper time alone. We furthermore consider radiative corrections to $\hat q$. As in the case of a static medium, we find potentially large corrections enhanced by a double logarithm. But unlike for the static medium, these corrections are now local in time: they depend upon the local (proper) time characterizing the expansion, and not upon the overall path length. We resum such corrections to all orders into a renormalized jet quenching parameter. The main effect of this resummation is to slow down the decrease of $\hat q$ with increasing proper time.

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