Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal resummation for dilepton production

We consider the thermal emission rate of dileptons from a QCD plasma in the small invariant mass (Q^2 \sim \gs^2 T^2) but large energy (q^0 \gsim T) range. We derive an integral equation which resums multiple scatterings to include the LPM effect; it is valid at leading order in the coupling. Then we recast it as a differential equation and show a simple algorithm for its solution. We present results for dilepton rates at phenomenologically interesting energies and invariant masses.Comment: 19 pages, 7 postscript figures, test program available at http://www-spht.cea.fr/articles/T02/150/libLPM

Ekpyrosis and inflationary dynamics in heavy ion collisions: the role of quantum fluctuations

We summarize recent significant progress in the development of a first-principles formalism to describe the formation and evolution of matter in very high energy heavy ion collisions. The key role of quantum fluctuations both before and after a collision is emphasized. Systematic computations are now feasible to address early time dynamics essential to quantifying properties of strongly interacting quark-gluon matter.Comment: Talk by R.V. at Quark Matter 2011, Annecy, France, May 23-28, 2011. LaTex, 4 pages; v2, final version to appear in J. Phys.

Drell-Yan production and Lam-Tung relation in the Color Glass Condensate formalism

We study the Drell-Yan production cross section and structure functions in proton (deuteron)-nucleus collisions using the Color Glass Condensate formalism. The nucleus is treated in the Color Glass Condensate framework which includes both higher twist effects due to the inclusion of multiple scatterings and leading twist pQCD shadowing due to the small x resummation, while the proton (or deuteron) is treated within the DGLAP improved parton model. In particular, the Drell-Yan structure functions are used in order to investigate the Lam-Tung relation at small x, which is known to be identically zero at leading twist up to Next-to-Leading order, and is thus a good playground for studying higher twist effects. In agreement with this, we find that violations of this relation are more important for low momentum and invariant mass of the Drell-Yan pair, and also in the region of rapidity that corresponds to smaller values of x in the nucleus.Comment: 25 pages, 16 postscript figure

Remarks on transient photon production in heavy ion collisions

In this note, we discuss the derivation of a formula that has been used in the literature in order to compute the number of photons emitted by a hot or dense system during a finite time. Our derivation is based on a variation of the standard operator-based $S$-matrix approach. The shortcomings of this formula are then emphasized, which leads to a negative conclusion concerning the possibility of using it to predict transient effects for the photon rate.Comment: 13 page

Wilson line correlator in the MV model: relating the glasma to deep inelastic scattering

In the color glass condensate framework the saturation scale measured in deep inelastic scattering of high energy hadrons and nuclei can be determined from the correlator of Wilson lines in the hadron wavefunction. These same Wilson lines give the initial condition of the classical field computation of the initial gluon multiplicity and energy density in a heavy ion collision. In this paper the Wilson line correlator in both adjoint and fundamental representations is computed using exactly the same numerical procedure that has been used to calculate gluon production in a heavy ion collision. In particular the discretization of the longitudinal coordinate has a large numerical effect on the relation between the color charge density parameter g^2 mu and the saturation scale Qs. Our result for this relation is Qs = 0.6 g^2 mu, which results in the classical Yang-Mills value for the "gluon liberation coefficient" c = 1.1.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, RevTEX4, V2: typo corrections, V3: small clarifications, to be published in EPJ

Dilepton production from the Color Glass Condensate

We consider dilepton production in high energy proton-nucleus (and very forward nucleus-nucleus) collisions. Treating the target nucleus as a Color Glass Condensate and describing the projectile proton (nucleus) as a collection of quarks and gluons as in the parton model, we calculate the differential cross section for dilepton production in quark-nucleus scattering and show that it is very sensitive to the saturation scale characterizing the target nucleus.Comment: 9 pages LaTeX document, 1 postscript figur

From Classical to Quantum Saturation in the Nuclear Gluon Distribution

We study the gluon content of a large nucleus (i) in the semi-classical McLerran-Venugopalan model and (ii) in the high energy limit as given by the quantum evolution of the Color Glass Condensate. We give a simple and qualitative description of the Cronin effect and high-pT suppression in proton-nucleus collisions.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, To appear in the Proceedings of International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes of High Energy Nuclear Collisions (HP2004), Ericeira, Portugal, 4-10 Nov, 200

Effective Kinetic Theory for High Temperature Gauge Theories

Quasiparticle dynamics in relativistic plasmas associated with hot, weakly-coupled gauge theories (such as QCD at asymptotically high temperature $T$) can be described by an effective kinetic theory, valid on sufficiently large time and distance scales. The appropriate Boltzmann equations depend on effective scattering rates for various types of collisions that can occur in the plasma. The resulting effective kinetic theory may be used to evaluate observables which are dominantly sensitive to the dynamics of typical ultrarelativistic excitations. This includes transport coefficients (viscosities and diffusion constants) and energy loss rates. We show how to formulate effective Boltzmann equations which will be adequate to compute such observables to leading order in the running coupling $g(T)$ of high-temperature gauge theories [and all orders in $1/\log g(T)^{-1}$]. As previously proposed in the literature, a leading-order treatment requires including both $22$ particle scattering processes as well as effective ``$12$'' collinear splitting processes in the Boltzmann equations. The latter account for nearly collinear bremsstrahlung and pair production/annihilation processes which take place in the presence of fluctuations in the background gauge field. Our effective kinetic theory is applicable not only to near-equilibrium systems (relevant for the calculation of transport coefficients), but also to highly non-equilibrium situations, provided some simple conditions on distribution functions are satisfied.Comment: 40 pages, new subsection on soft gauge field instabilities adde

Non-perturbative computation of double inclusive gluon production in the Glasma

The near-side ridge observed in A+A collisions at RHIC has been described as arising from the radial flow of Glasma flux tubes formed at very early times in the collisions. We investigate the viability of this scenario by performing a non-perturbative numerical computation of double inclusive gluon production in the Glasma. Our results support the conjecture that the range of transverse color screening of correlations determining the size of the flux tubes is a semi-hard scale, albeit with non-trivial structure. We discuss our results in the context of ridge correlations in the RHIC heavy ion experiments.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figures, uses JHEP3.cls V2: small clarifications, published in JHE

Viscosity and the Soft Ridge at RHIC

Correlation studies exhibit a ridge-like feature in rapidity and azimuthal angle, with and without a jet trigger. We ask whether the feature in untriggered correlations can be a consequence of transverse flow and viscous diffusion.Comment: Proc. Quark Matter 2008, Jaipur, Indi