arXiv subjects

I. K. Potashnikova

Publications and source records attributed to I. K. Potashnikova.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Coulomb-Nuclear Interference in polarized pA scattering

We made the first attempt to understand the observed unusual t dependence of single-spin asymmetry observed in the HJET experiment at RHIC. Usually, the interaction of hadrons is presented as a long-range Coulomb interaction and a short-range strong interaction with Coulomb corrections. Such a division gives rise to a Coulomb phase of the hadronic term. Conversely, here we consider short-range hadronic interaction as a correction to the long-range electromagnetic term, i.e., we treat it as an absorptive correction. This significantly affects the Coulomb-nuclear interference, which is a source of single-spin azimuthal asymmetry at small angles.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Single-Spin Asymmetry of Neutrons in Polarized pA Collisions

Absorptive corrections, which are known to suppress proton-neutron transitions with a large fractional momentum z -> 1 in pp collisions, become dramatically strong on a nuclear target, and they push the partial cross sections of leading neutron production to the very periphery of the nucleus. The mechanism of the pion and axial vector a1-meson interference, which successfully explains the observed single-spin asymmetry in a polarized pp -> nX, is extended to the collisions of polarized protons with nuclei. When corrected for nuclear effects, it explains the observed single-spin azimuthal asymmetry of neutrons that is produced in inelastic events, which is where the nucleus violently breaks up. This single-spin asymmetry is found to be negative and nearly A-independent.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Unconventional mechanisms of heavy quark fragmentation

Heavy and light quarks produced in high-$p_T$ partonic collisions radiate differently. Heavy quarks regenerate their color field, stripped-off in the hard reaction, much faster than the light ones and radiate a significantly smaller fraction of the initial quark energy. This peculiar feature of heavy-quark jets leads to a specific shape of the fragmentation functions observed in $e^+e^-$ annihilation. Differently from light flavors, the heavy quark fragmentation function strongly peaks at large fractional momentum $z$, i.e. the produced heavy-light mesons, $B$ or $D$, carry the main fraction of the jet momentum. This is a clear evidence of the dead-cone effect, and of a short production time of a heavy-light mesons. Contrary to propagation of a small $q\bar q$ dipole, which survives in the medium due to color transparency, a heavy-light $Q\bar q$ dipole promptly expands to a large size. Such a big dipole has no chance to remain intact in a dense medium produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions. On the other hand, a breakup of such a dipole does not affect much the production rate of $Q\bar q$ mesons, differently from the case of light $q\bar q$ meson production.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Ultra-peripheral nuclear collisions as a source of heavy quarkonia

Heavy quarkonium production in ultra-peripheral nuclear collisions (UPC) is described within the QCD dipole formalism. Realistic quarkonium wave functions in the $Q\bar Q$ rest frame are calculated by solving the Schrödinger equation with a subsequent Lorentz boost to high energy. We rely on several realistic $Q\bar Q$ potentials, which allow to describe well the quarkonium masses and decay widths, as well as data on diffractive electroproduction of quarkonia on protons. Nuclear effects are calculated with the phenomenological dipole cross sections fitted to DIS data. The higher twist quark shadowing related to the lowest $Q\bar Q$ Fock component of the photon, as well as the leading twist gluon shadowing, related to higher components containing gluons, are included. The results for coherent and incoherent photoproduction of charmonia and bottomonia in UPC of heavy nuclei are in good accord with available data from the LHC. They can also be verified in future experiments at electron-ion colliders.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Modeling photon radiation in soft hadronic collisions

Soft hadronic collisions with multiple production of (anti)quarks accompanied with soft photon radiation are described in terms of higher Fock states of the colliding hadrons, which contain a photon component as well. The Fock state distribution functions are shaped with the Quark-Gluon String Model. Photon radiation by quarks is described within the color-dipole phenomenology. The results of calculations are in a good accord with available data in a wide range of transverse momenta of the photons.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

The Low theorem for diffractive bremsstrahlung and the soft photon puzzle

The anomalous excess of small-kT photons radiated along with multi-hadron production, is challenging the physics community over four decades, but no solution has been proposed so far. We argue that the problem is rooted in the comparison with an incorrect model, usually called bremsstrahlung model. It is believed to be an extension of the Low theorem from the 2 -> 2+gamma process to radiative multi-particle production 2 -> n+gamma, where either initial, or final charged hadrons participate in radiation. We demonstrate that this breaks down unitarity of the S-matrix, so contradicts the optical theorem.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Coherent photoproduction of heavy quarkonia on nuclei

The differential cross section of coherent photo-production of heavy quarkonia on nuclear targets is calculated within the QCD color dipole formalism. The higher-twist nuclear shadowing corresponding to the $\bar QQ$ Fock component of the photon, is calculated including the correlation between dipole orientation $\vec r$ and impact parameter of a collision $\vec b$, which is related to the transverse momentum transfer via Fourier transform. We also included the leading twist gluon shadowing corresponding to higher Fock components of the photon containing gluons, which have specifically short coherence time, especially for multi-gluon components, even at very high energies. The contribution of such fluctuating gluonic dipole is calculated employing the path-integral technique. Our results are in good agreement with recent ALICE data on charmonium production in ultra-peripheral nuclear collisions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Probing the Pomeron spin structure with Coulomb-nuclear interference

Polarized pp elastic scattering at small angles in the Coulomb-nuclear interference (CNI) region offers a unique opportunity to study the spin structure of the Pomeron. Electromagnetic effects in elastic amplitude can be equivalently treated either as Coulomb corrections to the hadronic amplitude (Coulomb phase), or as absorption corrections to the Coulomb scattering amplitude. We perform the first calculation of the Coulomb phase for the spin-flip amplitude and found it significantly exceeding the widely used non-flip Coulomb phase. The alternative description in terms of absorption corrections, though equivalent, turned out to be a more adequate approach for the Coulomb corrected spin-flip amplitude. Inspired by the recent high statistics measurements of single-spin asymmetry in the fixed-target HJET experiment at the BNL, we also performed a Regge analysis of data, aiming at disentangling the Pomeron contribution. However, in spite of an exceptional accuracy of the data, they do not allow to single out the Pomeron term, which strongly correlates with the major sub-leading Reggeons. A stable solution can be accessed only by making additional ad hoc assumptions, e.g. assuming the Pomeron to be a simple Regge pole, or fixing some unknown parameters. Otherwise, in addition to the STAR data at $\sqrt{s}=$200 GeV new measurements, say at 100 GeV or 500 GeV, could become decisive.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Heavy quarkonium in saturated environment of high-multiplicity pp collisions

High-multiplicity pp collisions exhibit features, traditionally associated with nuclear effects. Coherence motivates to treat high-multiplicity pp, pA and AA collisions on an equal footing. We rely on the phenomenological parametrization for mean multiplicities of light hadrons and J/psi, assuming their linear dependence on N_{coll} in pA collisions. The results of this approach underestimate the recently measured production rate of J/psi at very high hadronic multiplicities. The linear dependence of J/psi multiplicity on N_{coll} is subject to predicted nonlinear corrections, related to mutual boosting of the saturation scales in colliding dense parton clouds. A parameter-free calculation of the non-linear corrections allows to explain data for pT-integrated yield of J/psi at high hadronic multiplicities. Calculations are in a good accord with data binned in several pT-intervals as well. As was predicted, Upsilon and J/psi are equally suppressed at forward rapidities in pA collisions. Consequently, their fractional multiplicities at forward rapidities in pp collisions are equal as well, and their magnitude agrees with data.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Survival of heavy flavored mesons in a hot medium

Hadronization of heavy quarks reveals various unusual features. Gluon radiation by a heavy quark originated from a hard process, ceases shortly on a distance of the order of few fm. Due to the dead-cone effect a heavy quark radiates only a small fraction of its energy. This is why the measured fragmentation function D(z) peaks at large z. Hadronization finishes at very short distances, well shorter than 1 fm, by production of a colorless small-size Qq-bar dipole. This ensures dominance of a perturbative mechanism and makes possible factorization of short and long distances. The latter corresponds to final state interactions of the produced dipole propagating through a dense medium. The results provide good description of data on beauty and charm suppression in heavy ion collisions, fixing the transport coefficient for b-quarks about twice smaller than for charm, and both significantly lower that the values determined from data on suppression of high-pT light hadrons. We relate this to reduction of the QCD coupling at higher scales, and suppression of radiation by the dead-cone effect.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Distinctive features of hadronizing heavy quarks

The color field of a quark, stripped off in a hard reaction, is regenerated via gluon radiation. The space-time development of a jet is controlled by the coherence time of gluon radiation, which for heavy quarks is subject to the dead-cone effect, suppressing gluons with small transverse momenta. As a result, heavy quarks can radiate only a small fraction of the initial energy. This explains the peculiar shape of the measured heavy quark fragmentation function, which strongly peaks at large fractional momenta z. The fragmentation length distribution, related to the fragmentation function in a model independent way, turns out to be concentrated at distances much shorter than the confinement radius. This implies that the mechanisms of heavy quark fragmentation is pure perturbative.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Diffractive dijet production: breakdown of factorization

We analyse the origin of dramatic breakdown of diffractive factorisation, observed in single-diffractive (SD) dijet production in hadronic collisions. One of the sources is the application of the results of measurements of the diagonal diffractive DIS to the off-diagonal hadronic diffractive process. The suppression caused by a possibility of inelastic interaction with the spectator partons is calculated at the amplitude level, differently from the usual probabilistic description. It turns out, however, that interaction with the spectator partons not only suppresses the SD cross section, but also gives rise to the main mechanism of SD dijet production, which is another important source of factorization failure. Our parameter-free calculations of SD-to-inclusive cross section ratio, performed in the dipole representation, agrees with the corresponding CDF Tevatron (Run II) data at $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV in the relevant kinematic regions. The energy and hard scale dependences demonstrate a trend, opposite to the factorisation-based expectations, similarly to the effect observed earlier in diffractive Abelian radiation.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Nuclear effects in leading neutron production

Absorptive corrections, known to suppress proton-neutron transitions with large fractional momentum $z\to1$ in pp collisions, become dramatically strong on a nuclear target, and push the partial cross sections of leading neutron production to the very periphery of the nucleus. The mechanism of $π$-$a_1$ interference, which successfully explains the observed single-spin asymmetry in polarized $pp\to nX$, is extended to collisions of polarized protons with nuclei. Corrected for nuclear effects, it explains the observed single-spin azimuthal asymmetry of neutrons, produced in inelastic events, where the nucleus violently breaks up. The single-spin asymmetry is found to be negative and nearly $A$-independent.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Novel scenario for production of heavy flavored mesons in heavy ion collisions

The observed strong suppression of heavy flavored hadrons produced with high $p_T$, is caused by final state interactions with the created dense medium. Vacuum radiation of high-pT heavy quarks ceases at a short time scale, as is confirmed by pQCD calculations and by LEP measurements of the fragmentation functions of heavy quarks. Production of a heavy flavored hadrons in a dense medium is considerably delayed due to prompt breakup of the hadrons by the medium. This causes a strong suppression of the heavy quark yield because of the specific shape of the fragmentation function. The parameter-free description is in a good accord with available data.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Leading Neutrons From Polarized Proton-Nucleus Collisions

Leading neutron production on protons is known to be subject to strong absorptive corrections, which have been under debate for a long time. On nuclear targets these corrections are significantly enhanced and push the partial cross sections of neutron production to the very periphery of the nucleus. As a result, the A-dependences of inclusive and diffractive neutron production turn out to be similar. The mechanism of π-a_1 interference, which successfully explained the observed single-spin asymmetry of neutrons in polarized pp interactions, is extended here to polarized pA collisions. Corrected for nuclear effects it explains well the magnitude and sign of the asymmetry A_N observed in inelastic events, resulting in a violent break up of the nucleus. However the excessive magnitude of A_N observed in the diffractive sample, remains a challenge.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2015

Heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in the LHC era: from proton-proton to heavy-ion collisions

This report reviews the study of open heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in high-energy hadronic collisions, as tools to investigate fundamental aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics, from the proton and nucleus structure at high energy to deconfinement and the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma. Emphasis is given to the lessons learnt from LHC Run 1 results, which are reviewed in a global picture with the results from SPS and RHIC at lower energies, as well as to the questions to be addressed in the future. The report covers heavy flavour and quarkonium production in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. This includes discussion of the effects of hot and cold strongly interacting matter, quarkonium photo-production in nucleus-nucleus collisions and perspectives on the study of heavy flavour and quarkonium with upgrades of existing experiments and new experiments. The report results from the activity of the SaporeGravis network of the I3 Hadron Physics programme of the European Union 7th Framework Programme.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2015

Production of neutrons in the vicinity of the pion pole

High-energy hadronic reactions with proton-to-neutron transitions (and vice versa) with small momentum transfer allow to study the properties of nearly on-shell pions, which cannot be accessed otherwise. We overview the recent results for such processes in deeply inelastic scattering, single and double leading neutron production in pp collisions, including polarization effect. A special attention is paid to the absorption effects, which are found to be much stronger than what has been evaluated previously.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Pion-pion cross section from proton-proton collisions at the LHC

The zero-degree calorimeters (ZDC) installed in the ALICE, ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC, make possible simultaneous detection of forward-backward leading neutrons, pp=>nXn. Such data with sufficiently high statistics could be a source of information about the pion-pion total cross section at high energies, provided that the absorption corrections, which are expected to be strong, are well understood. Otherwise, making a plausible assumption about the magnitude of the pion-pion cross section, one can consider such measurements as a way to study the absorption effects, which is the main focus of the present paper. These effects introduced at the amplitude level, are found to be different for the pion fluxes, which either conserve or flip the nucleon helicity. The pion fluxes from both colliding protons are essentially reduced by absorption, moreover, there is a common absorption suppression factor, which breaks down the factorized form of the cross section. We also evaluate the feed-down corrections related to the initial/final state inelastic processes possessing a rapidity gap, and found them to be small in the kinematic range under consideration. The contribution of other iso-vector Reggeons, spin-flip natural parity rho and a2, and spin non-flip unnatural parity a1 are also evaluated and found to be rather small.

hep-ph↗