QCD-Instantons and Saturation at Small x

We briefly report on the contribution of QCD-instantons to the phenomenon of saturation in deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) at small Bjorken-x. The explicitly known instanton gauge field serves as a concrete realization of an underlying non-perturbative saturation mechanism associated with strong classical fields. Two independent strategies were pursued, with consistent results: On the one hand, an approach starting from instanton-perturbation theory was considered and on the other hand, the scattering of a Wilson loop in an instanton gauge field background. In both cases, the conspicuous, intrinsic instanton size scale ~ 0.5 fm, as known from the lattice, turns out to determine the saturation scale.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, presented at the Workshop on Strong and Electroweak Matter (SEWM 2002), October 2-5, 2002, Heidelberg, German

Instanton-Driven Saturation at Small x

We report on the interesting possibility of instanton-driven gluon saturation in lepton-nucleon scattering at small Bjorken-x. Our results crucially involve non-perturbative information from high-quality lattice simulations. The conspicuous, intrinsic instanton size scale ~ 0.5 fm, as known from the lattice, turns out to determine the saturation scale. A central result is the identification of the ``colour glass condensate'' with the QCD-sphaleron state.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Effective-Lagrangian approach to gamma gamma --> WW; II: Results and comparison with e+e- --> WW

We present a study of anomalous electroweak gauge-boson couplings which can be measured in e+e- and gamma gamma collisions at a future linear collider like ILC. We consider the gauge-boson sector of a locally SU(2) x U(1) invariant effective Lagrangian with ten dimension-six operators added to the Lagrangian of the Standard Model. These operators induce anomalous three- and four-gauge-boson couplings and an anomalous gamma gamma H coupling. We calculate the reachable sensitivity for the measurement of the anomalous couplings in gamma gamma --> WW. We compare these results with the reachable precision in the reaction e+e- --> WW on the one hand and with the bounds that one can get from high-precision observables in Z decays on the other hand. We show that one needs both the e+e- and the gamma gamma modes at an ILC to constrain the largest possible number of anomalous couplings and that the Giga-Z mode offers the best sensitivity for certain anomalous couplings.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure, 7 tables, comments, references and a table added; to appear in EPJ

Factorisation, Parton Entanglement and the Drell-Yan Process

We discuss the angular distribution of the lepton pair in the Drell-Yan process, hadron+hadron -> \gamma^* X -> l^+ l^- X. This process gives information on the spin-density matrix \rho^{(q,\bar{q})} of the annihilating quark-antiquark pair in q+\bar{q} -> l^+ l^-. There is strong experimental evidence that even for unpolarised initial hadrons \rho^{(q,\bar{q})} is nontrivial, and therefore the quark-antiquark system is polarised. We discuss the possibilities of a general \rho^{(q,\bar{q})} -which could be entangled- and a factorising \rho^{(q,\bar{q})}. We argue that instantons may lead to a nontrivial \rho^{(q,\bar{q})} of the type indicated by experiments.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, comments and references added; to appear in EPJ

Tailoring the frictional properties of granular media

A method of modifying the roughness of soda-lime glass spheres is presented, with the purpose of tuning inter-particle friction. The effect of chemical etching on the surface topography and the bulk frictional properties of grains is systematically investigated. The surface roughness of the grains is measured using white light interferometry and characterised by the lateral and vertical roughness length scales. The underwater angle of repose is measured to characterise the bulk frictional behaviour. We observe that the co-efficient of friction depends on the vertical roughness length scale. We also demonstrate a bulk surface roughness measurement using a carbonated soft drink.Comment: 10 pages, 17 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Compatibility of phenomenological dipole cross sections with the Balitsky-Kovchegov equation

Phenomenological models of the dipole cross section that enters in the description of for instance deep inelastic scattering at very high energies have had considerable success in describing the available small-x data in both the saturation region and the so-called extended geometric scaling (EGS) region. We investigate to what extent such models are compatible with the numerical solutions of the Balitsky-Kovchegov (BK) equation which is expected to describe the nonlinear evolution in x of the dipole cross section in these momentum regions. We find that in the EGS region the BK equation yields results that are qualitatively different from those of phenomenological studies. In particular, geometric scaling around the saturation scale is only obtained at asymptotic rapidities. We find that in this limit, the anomalous dimension \gamma(r,x) of phenomenological models approaches a limiting function that is universal for a large range of initial conditions. At the saturation scale, this function equals approximately 0.44, in contrast to the value 0.628 commonly used in the models. We further investigate the dependence of these results on the starting distribution, the small-r limit of the anomalous dimension for fixed rapidities and the x-dependence of the saturation scale.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures. Extensive revisions, several new results, plots, references and conclusions added; to appear in Phys.Rev.