QCD in the LHC and in the future accelerators

• Grant number: 12/15765-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: November 01, 2012
• End date: November 07, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Elementary Particle Physics and Fields
• Principal Investigator: Fernando Silveira Navarra
• Grantee: Erike Roberto Cazaroto
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física (IF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 13/21759-5 - Multi-pomeron vertices from Color Glass Condensate formalism, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

The LHC has produced experimental data about proton-proton and lead-lead collisions and there is an expectation that in the near future there will be proton-lead collisions. Furthermore, the LHeC will produce electron-proton and electron-nucleus collisions. One of the topics that we will study in my post-doc is gluon saturation. We intend to calculate different observables which will be measured at the LHC. In these calculations we will use saturation models as well as linear models of QCD, and we will compare the results in order to verify which observables are sensitive to saturation effects in the gluonic distribution. In my publications during MSc and PhD we studied this subject in a systematic way. This gave me a good experience in this field.In the study of gluon saturation we will focus mainly on the physics of diffractive processes. Recently a new model for the diffractive cross section was proposed by researchers of Uppsala University (Sweden). This new model described successfully the most recent experimental data of HERA on Diffractive Deeply Inelastic Scattering (DDIS) and we intend to use it to calculate the main observables of diffractive processes which will be measured at LHC as well as in future colliders.We also plan to study the intrinsic charm content of hadrons. We call "intrinsic" the charm component of the hadronic wave function that cannot be calculated using perturbative QCD. This component has, as its main signature, an asymmetry in the production of the mesons D+ / D-, which has already been observed in experiments made in accelerators preceding the LHC. One of the models that we will use in our calculation is the "meson cloud model". (AU)