Selected topics in diffraction with protons and nuclei: past, present, and future

We review a broad range of phenomena in diffraction in the context of hadron-hadron, hadron-nucleus collisions and deep inelastic lepton-proton/nucleus scattering focusing on the interplay between the perturbative QCD and non-perturbative models. We discuss inclusive diffraction in DIS, phenomenology of dipole models, resummation and parton saturation at lowx, hard diffractive production of vector mesons, inelastic diffraction in hadron-hadron scattering, formalism of color fluctuations, inclusive coherent and incoherent diffraction as well as soft and hard diffraction phenomena in hadron-hadron/nucleus and photon-nucleus collisions. For each topic we review key results from the past and present experiments including HERA and the LHC. Finally, we identify the remaining open questions, which could be addressed in the continuing experiments, in particular in photon-induced reactions at the LHC and the future electron-ion collider in the US, large hadron electron collider and future circular collider at CERN.

Neutron Valence Structure from Nuclear Deep Inelastic Scattering

Mechanisms of spin-flavor SU(6) symmetry breaking in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) are studied via an extraction of the free neutron structure function from a global analysis of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) data on the proton and on nuclei from A=2 (deuterium) to 208 (lead). Modification of the structure function of nucleons bound in atomic nuclei (known as the EMC effect) are consistently accounted for within the framework of a universal modification of nucleons in short-range correlated (SRC) pairs. Our extracted neutron-to-proton structure function ratio F_{2}^{n}/F_{2}^{p} becomes constant for x_{B}≥0.6, equaling 0.47±0.04 as x_{B}→1, in agreement with theoretical predictions of perturbative QCD and the Dyson-Schwinger equation, and in disagreement with predictions of the scalar diquark dominance model. We also predict F_{2}^{^{3}He}/F_{2}^{^{3}H}, recently measured, as yet unpublished, by the MARATHON Collaboration, the nuclear correction function that is needed to extract F_{2}^{n}/F_{2}^{p} from F_{2}^{^{3}He}/F_{2}^{^{3}H}, and the theoretical uncertainty associated with this extraction.

Tracking fast small color dipoles through strong gluon fields at the LHC

We argue that the process gamma+A-->J/psi+"gap"+X at large momentum transfer q(2) provides a quick and effective way to test the onset of a novel perturbative QCD regime of strong absorption for the interaction of small dipoles at the collider energies. We find that already the first heavy-ion run at the LHC will allow one to study this reaction with sufficient statistics via ultraperipheral collisions, hence probing the interaction of qq dipoles of sizes approximately 0.2 fm with nuclear media down to x approximately 10(-5).

Color fluctuations in the nucleon in high-energy scattering

We study quantum fluctuations of the nucleon's parton densities by combining QCD factorization for hard processes with the notion of cross section fluctuations in soft diffraction. The fluctuations of the small-x gluon density are related to the ratio of inelastic and elastic vector meson production in ep scattering. A simple dynamical model explains the HERA data and predicts the x and Q2 dependence of the ratio. In pp/p[over ]p scattering, fluctuations enhance multiple hard processes (but cannot explain the Tevatron CDF data), and reduce gap survival in central exclusive diffraction.

How to probe high gluon densities in pp collisions at the Large Hadron Collider

We present a model for hadron production in the proton fragmentation region in pp collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider which accounts for the first time for effects of very strong small x gluon fields. Average transverse momenta acquired by the valence quarks exceed 1 GeV/c for central collisions and result in the suppression of leading baryon production and an additional energy flow to smaller rapidities. A strong dependence on the impact parameter will allow one to investigate the propagation of leading partons through gluon fields of a strength comparable to the ones encountered in heavy ion collisions at the LHC and in cosmic-ray-air interactions at highest energies.

Measurement of nuclear transparency for the A(e,e'pi+) reaction

We have measured the nuclear transparency of the A(e,e'pi+) process in 2H, 12C, 27Al, 63Cu, and 197Au targets. These measurements were performed at the Jefferson Laboratory over a four momentum transfer squared range Q2=1.1 to 4.7 (GeV/c)2. The nuclear transparency was extracted as the super-ratio of (sigmaA/sigmaH) from data to a model of pion-electroproduction from nuclei without pi-N final-state interactions. The Q2 and atomic number dependence of the nuclear transparency both show deviations from traditional nuclear physics expectations and are consistent with calculations that include the quantum chromodynamical phenomenon of color transparency.

Evidence for strong dominance of proton-neutron correlations in nuclei

We analyze recent data from high-momentum-transfer (p, pp) and (p, ppn) reactions on carbon. For this analysis, the two-nucleon short-range correlation (NN-SRC) model for backward nucleon emission is extended to include the motion of the NN pair in the mean field. The model is found to describe major characteristics of the data. Our analysis demonstrates that the removal of a proton from the nucleus with initial momentum 275-550 MeV/c is 92(+8/-18) % of the time accompanied by the emission of a correlated neutron that carries momentum roughly equal and opposite to the initial proton momentum. This indicates that the probabilities of pp or nn SRCs in the nucleus are at least a factor of 6 smaller than that of pn SRCs. Our result is the first estimate of the isospin structure of NN-SRCs in nuclei, and may have important implication for modeling the equation of state of asymmetric nuclear matter.

High-density QCD and cosmic-ray air showers

We discuss particle production in the high-energy, small-x limit of QCD where the gluon density of hadrons is expected to become nonperturbatively large. Strong modifications of the phase-space distribution of produced particles as compared to leading-twist models are predicted, which reflect in the properties of cosmic-ray induced air showers in the atmosphere. Assuming hadronic primaries, our results suggest a light composition near Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff energies. We also show that cosmic-ray data are sensitive to various QCD evolution scenarios for the rate of increase of the gluon density at small x, such as fixed-coupling and running-coupling Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov evolution. There are clear indications for a slower growth of the gluon density as compared to RHIC and HERA, due, e.g., to running-coupling effects.

Nuclear shadowing and extraction of Fp2-Fn2 at small x from deuteron collider data

We demonstrate that leading twist nuclear shadowing leads to large corrections for the extraction of the neutron structure function Fn2 from the future deuteron collider data both in the inclusive and in the tagged structure function modes. We suggest several strategies to address the extraction of Fn2 and to measure at the same time the effect of nuclear shadowing via the measurement of the distortion of the proton spectator spectrum in the semi-inclusive eD-->e'pX process.

Ion-induced quark-gluon implosion

We investigate nuclear fragmentation in the central proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at the energies of CERN LHC. Within the semiclassical approximation we argue that because of the fast increase with energy of the cross sections of soft and hard interactions each nucleon is stripped in the average process off "soft" partons and fragments into a collection of leading quarks and gluons with large p(t). Valence quarks and gluons are streaming in the opposite directions when viewed in the c.m. of the produced system. The resulting pattern of the fragmentation of the colliding nuclei leads to an implosion of the quark and gluon constituents of the nuclei. The nonequilibrium state produced at the initial stage in the nucleus fragmentation region is estimated to have densities >/=50 GeV/fm(3) at the LHC energies and probably >/=10 GeV/fm(3) at BNL RHIC.

Proton breakup in high-energy pA collisions from perturbative QCD

We argue that the distribution of hadrons near the longitudinal light cone in central high-energy pA collisions is computable in weak coupling QCD. This is because the density of gluons per unit transverse area in the dense target at saturation provides an intrinsic semihard momentum scale, Q(s). We predict that the longitudinal distribution of (anti)baryons and mesons steepens with increasing energy and atomic number of the target and that the transverse momentum distribution broadens. We show that the evolution of high moments of the longitudinal net baryon distribution with Q(s) is determined by the anomalous dimension gamma(qq).

Measuring double-parton distributions in nucleons at proton-nucleus colliders

We predict a strong enhancement of multijet production in proton-nucleus collisions at collider energies, as compared to a naive expectation of a cross section similar to A. The study of the process would allow one to measure, for the first time, the double-parton distribution functions in a nucleon in a model-independent way and hence to study both the longitudinal and the transverse correlations of partons.

Revealing the black-body regime of small-x deep-inelastic scattering through final-state signals

We derive the major characteristics of inclusive and diffractive final states in deep-inelastic scattering off heavy nuclei for the high-energy (small-x) kinematics in which the limit of complete absorption is reached for the dominant hadronic fluctuations in the virtual photon (the black-body limit of the process). Both the longitudinal and transverse distributions of the leading hadrons are found to be strikingly different from the corresponding ones within the leading-twist approximation, and hence provide unambiguous signals for the onset of the black-body limit.

Hard exclusive electroproduction of decuplet baryons in the large N(c) limit

The cross sections and transverse spin asymmetries in the hard exclusive electroproduction of decuplet baryons are calculated in the large N(c) limit and found to be comparable to that of octet baryons. Large N(c) selection rules for the production amplitudes are derived, leading to new sensitive tests of the spin aspects of the QCD chiral dynamics both in the nonstrange and strange sectors. Importance of such studies for the reliable extraction of the pion form factor from pion electroproduction is explained.