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K. J. Eskola

Publications and source records attributed to K. J. Eskola.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Heavy Quarks: Summary Report

The present status of the heavy-quark production theory is critically reviewed in the first contribution. The second contribution summarises the present heavy flavour data from HERA and gives an outlook of what can be expected from HERA-II. The potential of the LHC experiments for charm and beauty physics is reviewed in the 3rd contribution. Then the relevance of saturation and small-x effects to heavy quark production at HERA and at the LHC are discussed. The non-perturbative aspects of heavy-quark fragmentation and their relevance to HERA and LHC are discussed in the next contribution. Finally, a comparison of different theoretical predictions for HERA and LHC based on different approaches is presented.

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NuTeV $\sin ^2 θ_{\rm W}$ anomaly and nuclear parton distributions revisited

By studying the Paschos-Wolfenstein (PW) ratio of deep inelastic $ν{\rm Fe}$ and $\bar ν{\rm Fe}$ scattering cross sections, we show that it should be possible to explain the NuTeV $\sin ^2 θ_{\rm W}$ anomaly with quite conventional physics, by introducing mutually different nuclear modifications for the valence-$u$ and valence-$d$ quark distributions of the protons in iron. Keeping the EKS98 nuclear modifications for $u_V+d_V$ as a baseline, we find that some 20-30 % nuclear modifications to the $u_V$ and $d_V$ distributions account for the change induced in the PW ratio by the NuTeV-suggested increase $Δ\sin ^2 θ_{\rm W}=0.005$. We show that introduction of such nuclear modifications in $u_V$ and $d_V$ individually, does not lead into contradiction with the present global DGLAP analyses of the nuclear parton distributions, where deep inelastic $lA$ scattering data and Drell-Yan dilepton data from $pA$ collisions are used as constraints. We thus suggest that the NuTeV result serves as an important further constraint in pinning down the nuclear effects of the bound nucleon PDFs. We also predict that if the NuTeV anomaly is explained by this mechanism, the NOMAD experiment should see an increase in the weak mixing angle quite close to the NuTeV result.

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HERA and the LHC - A workshop on the implications of HERA for LHC physics: Proceedings - Part A

The HERA electron--proton collider has collected 100 pb$^{-1}$ of data since its start-up in 1992, and recently moved into a high-luminosity operation mode, with upgraded detectors, aiming to increase the total integrated luminosity per experiment to more than 500 pb$^{-1}$. HERA has been a machine of excellence for the study of QCD and the structure of the proton. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which will collide protons with a centre-of-mass energy of 14 TeV, will be completed at CERN in 2007. The main mission of the LHC is to discover and study the mechanisms of electroweak symmetry breaking, possibly via the discovery of the Higgs particle, and search for new physics in the TeV energy scale, such as supersymmetry or extra dimensions. Besides these goals, the LHC will also make a substantial number of precision measurements and will offer a new regime to study the strong force via perturbative QCD processes and diffraction. For the full LHC physics programme a good understanding of QCD phenomena and the structure function of the proton is essential. Therefore, in March 2004, a one-year-long workshop started to study the implications of HERA on LHC physics. This included proposing new measurements to be made at HERA, extracting the maximum information from the available data, and developing/improving the theoretical and experimental tools. This report summarizes the results achieved during this workshop.

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Transverse Spectra of Hadrons in Central $AA$ Collisions at RHIC and LHC from pQCD+Saturation+Hydrodynamics and from pQCD+Energy Losses

We study the transverse spectra of hadrons in nearly central $AA$ collisions at RHIC and LHC in a broad transverse momentum range Low-$p_T$ spectra are calculated by using boost-invariant hydrodynamics with initial energy and net-baryon densities from the EKRT pQCD+saturation model. High-$p_T$ spectra are obtained from pQCD jet calculation including the energy loss of the parton in the matter prior to its fragmentation to final hadrons.

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RHIC-tested predictions for low-$p_T$ and high-$p_T$ hadron spectra in nearly central Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC

We study the hadron spectra in nearly central $A$+$A$ collisions at RHIC and LHC in a broad transverse momentum range. We cover the low-$p_T$ spectra using longitudinally boost-invariant hydrodynamics with initial energy and net-baryon number densities from the perturbative QCD (pQCD)+saturation model. Build-up of the transverse flow and sensitivity of the spectra to a single decoupling temperature $\Tdec$ are studied. Comparison with RHIC data at $\ssNN=130$ and 200 GeV suggests a rather high value $\Tdec=150$ MeV. The high-$p_T$ spectra are computed using factorized pQCD cross sections, nuclear parton distributions, fragmentation functions, and describing partonic energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma by quenching weights. Overall normalization is fixed on the basis of p+$\bar{\rm p}$(p) data and the strength of energy loss is determined from RHIC Au+Au data. Uncertainties are discussed. With constraints from RHIC data, we predict the $p_T$ spectra of hadrons in 5 % most central Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC energy $\ssNN=5500$ GeV. Due to the closed framework for primary production, we can also predict the net-baryon number at midrapidity, as well as the strength of partonic energy losses at the LHC. Both at the LHC and RHIC, we recognize a rather narrow crossover region in the $p_T$ spectra, where the hydrodynamic and pQCD fragmentation components become of equal size. We argue that in this crossover region the two contributions are to a good approximation mutually independent. In particular, our results suggest a wider $p_T$-region of applicability for hydrodynamical models at the LHC than at RHIC.

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D meson enhancement in pp collisions at the LHC due to nonlinear gluon evolution

When nonlinear effects on the gluon evolution are included with constraints from HERA, the gluon distribution in the free proton is enhanced at low momentum fractions, x < 0.01, and low scales, Q^2 < 10 GeV^2, relative to standard, DGLAP-evolved, gluon distributions. Consequently, such gluon distributions can enhance charm production in pp collisions at center of mass energy 14 TeV by up to a factor of five at midrapidity, y \sim 0, and transverse momentum p_T -> 0 in the most optimistic case. We show that most of this enhancement survives hadronization into D mesons. Assuming the same enhancement at leading and next-to-leading order, we show that the D enhancement may be measured by D^0 reconstruction in the K^-π^+ decay channel with the ALICE detector.

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The Fragility of High-pT Hadron Spectra as a Hard Probe

We study the suppression of high-pT hadron spectra in nuclear collisions, supplementing the perturbative QCD factorized formalism with radiative parton energy loss. We find that the nuclear modification factor which quantifies the degree of suppression, is almost pT-independent both for RHIC (in agreement with data) and for the LHC. This is a consequence of the shape of the partonic pT-spectrum in elementary collisions which implies that for the same value of the nuclear modification factor at higher pT, an increasingly smaller fraction of parton energy loss is needed. When the values of the time-averaged transport coefficient exceed 5 GeV^2/fm, the nuclear modification factor gradually loses its sensitivity to the corresponding produced energy density. This is due to particle production in the outer corona of the medium, which remains almost unsuppressed even for extreme densities. Thus, even for the highest experimentally accessible transverse momentum at the LHC and in contrast to jets, the measurement of leading partons via leading hadrons is not a penetrating probe of the dense matter, but a rather fragile probe which fragments for the opacities reached below the skin of the medium. Relating the transport coefficient to the energy density produced in the collision region, we find and discuss a phenomenon reminiscent of the opacity problem of elliptic flow: namely, the interaction of the hard parent parton with the medium appears to be much stronger than that expected for perturbative interactions of the hard parton with an ideal quark gluon plasma.

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Photon Physics in Heavy Ion Collisions at the LHC

Various pion and photon production mechanisms in high-energy nuclear collisions at RHIC and LHC are discussed. Comparison with RHIC data is done whenever possible. The prospect of using electromagnetic probes to characterize quark-gluon plasma formation is assessed.

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Enhanced charm hadroproduction due to nonlinear corrections to the DGLAP equations

We have studied the effects of nonlinear scale evolution of the parton distribution functions to charm production in $pp$ collisions at center-of-mass energies of 5.5, 8.8 and 14 TeV. We find that the differential charm cross section can be enhanced up to a factor of 4-5 at low $p_T$. The enhancement is quite sensitive to the charm quark mass and the renormalization/factorization scales.

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Enhancement of charm quark production due to nonlinear corrections to the DGLAP equations

We have studied how parton distributions based on the inclusion of nonlinear scale evolution and constraints from HERA data affect charm production in $pp$ collisions at center-of-mass energies of 5.5, 8.8 and 14 TeV. We find that, while the resulting enhancement can be substantial, it is very sensitive to the charm quark mass and the scale entering the parton densities and the strong coupling constant.

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Hard probes in heavy ion collisions at the LHC: PDFs, shadowing and $pA$ collisions

This manuscript is the outcome of the subgroup ``PDFs, shadowing and $pA$ collisions'' from the CERN workshop ``Hard Probes in Heavy Ion Collisions at the LHC''. In addition to the experimental parameters for $pA$ collisions at the LHC, the issues discussed are factorization in nuclear collisions, nuclear parton distributions (nPDFs), hard probes as the benchmark tests of factorization in $pA$ collisions at the LHC, and semi-hard probes as observables with potentially large nuclear effects. Also, novel QCD phenomena in $pA$ collisions at the LHC are considered. The importance of the $pA$ program at the LHC is emphasized.

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Nonlinear corrections to the DGLAP equations in view of the HERA data

The effects of the first nonlinear corrections to the DGLAP evolution equations are studied by using the recent HERA data for the structure function $F_2(x,Q^2)$ of the free proton and the parton distributions from CTEQ5L and CTEQ6L as a baseline. By requiring a good fit to the H1 data, we determine initial parton distributions at $Q_0^2=1.4$ GeV$^2$ for the nonlinear scale evolution. We show that the nonlinear corrections improve the agreement with the $F_2(x,Q^2)$ data in the region of $x\sim 3\cdot 10^{-5}$ and $Q^2\sim 1.5$ GeV$^2$ without paying the price of obtaining a worse agreement at larger values of $x$ and $Q^2$. For the gluon distribution the nonlinear effects are found to play an increasingly important role at $x\lsim 10^{-3}$ and $Q^2\lsim10$ GeV$^2$, but rapidly vanish at larger values of $x$ and $Q^2$. Consequently, contrary to CTEQ6L, the obtained gluon distribution at $Q^2=1.4$ GeV$^2$ shows a power-like growth at small $x$. Relative to the CTEQ6L gluons, an enhancement up to a factor $\sim6$ at $x=10^{-5}$, $Q_0^2=1.4$ GeV$^2$ reduces to a negligible difference at $Q^2\gsim 10$ GeV$^2$.

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Global DGLAP fit analyses of the nPDF: EKS98 and HKM

The DGLAP analyses of the nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDF) based on the global fits to the data are reviewed, and the results from EKS98 and HKM are compared. The usefulness of measuring hard probes in $pA$ collisions, at the LHC in particular, is demonstrated.

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Dependence of hadron spectra on decoupling temperature and resonance contributions

Using equilibrium hydrodynamics with initial conditions for the energy and net baryon number densities from the perturbative QCD + saturation model, a good simultaneous description of the measured pion, kaon and (anti)proton spectra in central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt s=130 A$GeV is found with a single decoupling temperature $\Tdec=150...160$ MeV. The interplay between the resonance content of the EoS and the development of the transverse flow leads to inverse slopes and $ $ of hadrons which increase with decreasing $\Tdec$. The origin of this result is discussed.

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Transverse spectra of hadrons at RHIC

We present results on spectra of pions, kaons and (anti)protons from a study of heavy ion collisions using the perturbative QCD + saturation model to calculate the production of initial (transverse) energy and baryon number followed by a hydrodynamic description of the expansion of produced matter. In particular, we study how the hadron spectra and multiplicities depend on the decoupling temperature $\Tdec$ when the low temperature phase contains all hadrons and and hadron resonances with mass below 2 GeV. We show that the spectra and multiplicities of pions, kaons and (anti)protons measured at RHIC in central Au+Au collisions with $\sqrt s=130$ GeV can be obtained with a single decoupling temperature 150$...$160 MeV, common for both the chemical and the kinetic freeze-out.

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DGLAP analyses of nPDF: constraints from data

We explain how the constraints from present experimental data can be used to obtain the nPDF in the framework of LO DGLAP evolution. We will also compare the only two available sets of this type and comment on the important information that neutrino factories could provide.

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Constraints for nuclear gluon densities from DIS data

The $Q^2$ dependence of the ratios of nuclear structure functions $F_2^A$ is studied by performing QCD evolution of nuclear parton distribution functions. The log $Q^2$ slope of these ratios is very sensitive to the nuclear gluon distribution function. Taking different parametrizations, we show that the NMC data on the $Q^2$ dependence of $F_2^{\rm Sn}/F_2^{\rm C}$ rule out the case where nuclear shadowing (suppression) of gluons at $x\sim 0.01$ is much larger than the shadowing observed in the ratio $F_2^A/F_2^{\rm D}$. We also take into account modifications to the DGLAP evolution by including gluon fusion terms and see that the effect is small at present energies, and, in any case, a strong gluon shadowing is not favored. The region studied ($x \sim 0.01$) is the most relevant for RHIC multiplicities.

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