arXiv subjects

F. Carvalho

Publications and source records attributed to F. Carvalho.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

Production of fully-heavy tetraquark states through the double parton scattering mechanism in $pp$ and $pA$ collisions

The production of fully-heavy tetraquark states in proton-proton ($pp$) and proton-nucleus ($pA$) collisions at the center-of-mass energies of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and at the Future Circular Collider (FCC) is investigated considering that these states are produced through the double parton scattering mechanism. We estimate the cross sections for the $T_{4c}$, $T_{4b}$ and $T_{2b2c}$ states and present predictions for $pp$, $pCa$ and $pPb$ collisions considering the rapidity ranges covered by central and forward detectors. We demonstrate that the cross sections for $pA$ collisions are enhanced in comparison to the $pp$ predictions scaled by the atomic number. Moreover, our results indicate that a search of these exotic states is, in principle, feasible in the future runs of the LHC and FCC.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Leading $Λ$ production in future electron-proton colliders

Leading $Λ$ (LL) production in $ep$ collisions at high energies is investigated using the color dipole formalism and taking into account the nonlinear QCD effects. In particular, the impact of the absorptive effects on the LL spectra are estimated considering the kinematical range that will be probed by the Electron Ion Collider (EIC) and by the Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC). Our results indicate that the LL spectrum is strongly suppressed at small photon virtualities. These results suggest that absorptive effects are not negligible and should be taken into account in order to extract the kaon structure function from data on leading $Λ$ production.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Leading neutron production at the EIC and LHeC: estimating the impact of the absorptive corrections

Leading neutron (LN) production in $ep$ collisions at high energies is investigated using the color dipole formalism and taking into account saturation effects. We update the treatment of absorptive effects and estimate the impact of these effects on LN spectra in the kinematical range that will be probed by the Electron Ion Collider (EIC) and by the Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC). We demonstrate that Feynman scaling, associated to saturation, is not violated by the inclusion of absorptive effects. Moreover, our results indicate that the LN spectrum is strongly suppressed at small photon virtualities. These results suggest that absorptive effects cannot be disregarded in future measurements of the $γπ$ cross section to be extracted from data on leading neutron production.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

$D$ - meson production at very forward rapidities: estimating the intrinsic charm contribution

We study $D$ - meson production at forward rapidities taking into account the non - linear effects in the QCD dynamics and the intrinsic charm component of the proton wave function. The total cross section, the rapidity distributions and the Feynman - $x$ distributions are calculated for $p p$ collisions at different center of mass energies. Our results show that, at the LHC, the intrinsic charm component changes the $D$ rapidity distributions in a region which is beyond the coverage of the LHCb detectors. At higher energies the IC component dominates the $y$ and $x_F$ distributions exactly in the range where the produced $D$ mesons decay and contribute the most to the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux measured by the ICECUBE Collaboration. We compute the $x_F$ - distributions and demonstrate that they are enhanced at LHC energies by approximately one order of magnitude in the $0.2 \le x_F \le 0.8$ range.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Exclusive vector meson photoproduction with a leading baryon in photon - hadron interactions at hadronic colliders

Exclusive vector meson photoproduction associated with a leading baryon ($B = n, Δ^+, Δ^0$) in $pp$ and $pA$ collisions at RHIC and LHC energies is investigated using the color dipole formalism and taking into account nonlinear effects in the QCD dynamics. In particular, we compute the cross sections for $ρ$, $ϕ$ and $J/Ψ$ production together with a $Δ$ and compare the predictions with those obtained for a leading neutron. Our results show that the $V + Δ$ cross section is almost 30 % of the $V + n$ one. Our results also show that a future experimental analysis of these processes is, in principle, feasible and can be useful to study leading particle production.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Tetraquark Production in Double Parton Scattering

We develop a model to study tetraquark production in hadronic collisions. We focus on double parton scattering and formulate a version of the color evaporation model for the production of the $X(3872)$ and of the $T_{4c}$ tetraquark, a state composed by the $c \bar{c} c \bar{c}$ quarks. We find that the production cross section grows rapidly with the collision energy $\sqrt{s}$ and make predictions for the forthcoming higher energy data of the LHC.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Gluon saturation and Feynman scaling in leading neutron production

In this paper we extend the color dipole formalism to the study of leading neutron production in $e + p \rightarrow e + n + X$ collisions at high energies and estimate the related observables, which were measured at HERA and may be analysed in future electron-proton ($ep$) colliders. In particular, we calculate the Feynman $x_F$ distribution of leading neutrons, which is expressed in terms of the pion flux and the photon-pion total cross section. In the color dipole formalism, the photon-pion cross section is described in terms of the dipole-pion scattering amplitude, which contains information about the QCD dynamics at high energies and gluon saturation effects. We consider different models for the scattering amplitude, which have been used to describe the inclusive and diffractive $ep$ HERA data. Moreover, the model dependence of our predictions with the description of the pion flux is analysed in detail. We show that the recently released H1 leading neutron spectra can be reproduced using the color dipole formalism and that these spectra could help us to observe more clearly gluon saturation effects in future $ep$ colliders.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Double vector meson production in the International Linear Collider

In this paper we study double vector meson production in $γγ$ interactions at high energies and, using the color dipole picture, estimate the main observables which can be probed at the International Linear Collider (ILC). The total $γ(Q_1^2) + γ(Q_2^2) \rightarrow V_1 + V_2$ cross-sections for $V_i = ρ$, $ϕ$, $J/ψ$ and $Υ$ are computed and the energy and virtuality dependencies are studied in detail. Our results demonstrate that the experimental analysis of this process is feasible at the ILC and it can be useful to constrain the QCD dynamics at high energies.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Nuclear shadowing in deep inelastic scattering on nuclei: a closer look

The measurement of the nuclear structure function $F_2^A (x,Q^2)$ at the future electron-ion collider (EIC) will be of great relevance to understand the origin of the nuclear shadowing and to probe gluon saturation effects. Currently there are several phenomenological models, based on very distinct approaches, which describe the scarce experimental data quite successfully. One of main uncertainties comes from the schemes used to include the effects associated to the multiple scatterings and to unitarize the cross section. In this paper we compare the predictions of three different unitarization schemes of the nuclear structure function which use the same theoretical input to describe the projectile-nucleon interaction. In particular, we consider as input the predictions of the Color Glass Condensate formalism, which reproduce the inclusive and diffractive $ep$ HERA data. Our results suggest that the experimental analysis of $F_2^A$ will be able to discriminate between the unitarization schemes.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Non-linear QCD dynamics in two-photon interactions at high energies

Perturbative QCD predicts that the growth of the gluon density at high energies should saturate, forming a Color Glass Condensate (CGC), which is described in mean field approximation by the Balitsky-Kovchegov (BK) equation. In this paper we study the $γγ$ interactions at high energies and estimate the main observables which will be probed at future linear colliders using the color dipole picture. We discuss in detail the dipole - dipole cross section and propose a new relation between this quantity and the dipole scattering amplitude. The total $γγ$, $γ^{*} γ^{*}$ cross-sections and the real photon structure function $F_2^γ(x,Q^2)$ are calculated using the recent solution of the BK equation with running coupling constant and the predictions are compared with those obtained using phenomenological models for the dipole-dipole cross section and scattering amplitude. We demonstrate that these models are able to describe the LEP data at high energies, but predict a very different behavior for the observables at higher energies. Therefore we conclude that the study of $γγ$ interactions can be useful to constrain the QCD dynamics.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Exclusive processes in electron - ion collisions

The exclusive processes in electron-ion ($eA$) interactions are an important tool to investigate the QCD dynamics at high energies as they are in general driven by the gluon content of the target, which is strongly subject to parton saturation effects. In this paper we compute the cross sections for the exclusive vector meson production as well as the deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) relying on the color dipole approach and considering the numerical solution of the Balitsky-Kovchegov equation including running coupling corrections (rcBK). The production cross sections obtained with the rcBK solution and bCGC parametrization are very similar, the former being slightly larger.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

Charm and longitudinal structure functions with the Kharzeev-Levin-Nardi model

We use the Kharzeev-Levin-Nardi model of the low $x$ gluon distributions to fit recent HERA data on charm and longitudinal structure functions. Having checked that this model gives a good description of the data, we use it to predict $F^c_2$ and $F_L$ to be measured in a future electron-ion collider. The results interpolate between those obtained with the de Florian-Sassot and Eskola-Paukkunen-Salgado nuclear gluon distributions. The conclusion of this exercise is that the KLN model, simple as it is, may still be used as an auxiliary tool to make estimates both for heavy ion and electron-ion collisions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2008

Could saturation effects be visible in a future electron-ion collider?

We expect to observe parton saturation in a future electron - ion collider. In this letter we discuss this expectation in more detail considering two different models which are in good agreement with the existing experimental data on nuclear structure functions. In particular, we study the predictions of saturation effects in electron - ion collisions at high energies, using a generalization for nuclear targets of the b-CGC model, which describes the $ep$ HERA quite well. We estimate the total, longitudinal and charm structure functions in the dipole picture and compare them with the predictions obtained using collinear factorization and modern sets of nuclear parton distributions. Our results show that inclusive observables are not very useful in the search for saturation effects. In the small $x$ region they are very difficult to disentangle from the predictions of the collinear approaches . This happens mainly because of the large uncertainties in the latter. On the other hand, our results indicate that the contribution of diffractive processes to the total cross section is about 20 % at large A and small Q^2, allowing for a detailed study of diffractive observables. The study of diffractive processes becomes essential to observe parton saturation.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2008

Constraining the nuclear gluon distribution in $eA$ processes at RHIC

A systematic determination of the gluon distribution is of fundamental interest in understanding the parton structure of nuclei and the QCD dynamics. Currently, the behavior of this distribution at small $x$ (high energy) is completely undefined. In this paper we analyze the possibility of constraining the nuclear effects present in $xg^A$ using the inclusive observables which would be measured in the future electron-nucleus collider at RHIC. We demonstrate that the study of nuclear longitudinal and charm structure functions allows to estimate the magnitude of shadowing and antishadowing effects in the nuclear gluon distribution.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2007

Gluon saturation and the Froissart bound: a simple approach

At very high energies we expect that the hadronic cross sections satisfy the Froissart bound, which is a well-established property of the strong interactions. In this energy regime we also expect the formation of the Color Glass Condensate, characterized by gluon saturation and a typical momentum scale: the saturation scale $Q_s$. In this paper we show that if a saturation window exists between the nonperturbative and perturbative regimes of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the total cross sections satisfy the Froissart bound. Furthermore, we show that our approach allows us to describe the high energy experimental data on $pp/p\bar{p}$ total cross sections.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2005

Elastic scattering and the proton form factor

We compute the differential and the total cross sections for $pp$ scattering using the QCD pomeron model proposed by Landshoff and Nachtmann. This model is quite dependent on the experimental electromagnetic form factor, and it is not totally clear why this form factor gives good results even at moderate transferred momentum. We exchange the eletromagnetic form factor by the asymptotic QCD proton form factor determined by Brodsky and Lepage (BL) plus a prescription for its low energy behavior dictated by the existence of a dynamically generated gluon mass. We fit the data with this QCD inspired form factor and a value for the dynamical gluon mass consistent with the ones determined in the literature. Our results also provide a new determination of the proton wave function at the origin, which appears in the BL form factor.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2005

Hadronic form factors and the $J/ψ$ secondary production cross section: an update

Improving previous calculations, we compute the $D + \bar{D} \to J/ψ+ π$ cross section using the most complete effective lagrangians available. The new crucial ingredients are the form factors on the charm meson vertices, which are determined from QCD sum rules calculations. Some of them became available only very recently and the last one, needed for our present purpose, is calculated in this work.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2004

Meson loop effects on the pion electromagnetic form factor

In this work we calculate the meson loop effects on the pion electromagnetic form factor and perform a comparison with experimental data. We show that, even though the meson cloud is not the only nonperturbative process to be considered, its contribution is significant.

nucl-th↗