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# Magnetic Phase Diagrams with Possible Field-induced Antiferroquadrupolar Order in TbB2C2

Present address: \]Advanced Science Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, Tokai, Naka, Ibaraki 319-1195, Japan

## Abstract

Magnetic phase diagrams of a tetragonal antiferromagnet TbB2C2 were clarified by temperature and field dependence of magnetization. It is noticeable that the Néel temperature in TbB2C2 is anomalously enhanced with magnetic fields, in particular the enhancement reaches 13.5 K for the $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ direction at 10 T. The magnetization processes as well as the phase diagrams are well interpreted assuming that there appear field-induced antiferroquadrupolar ordered phases in TbB2C2. The phase diagrams of the AFQ compounds in RB2C2 are systematically understood in terms of the competition with AFQ and AFM interactions.

In addition to spin and charge, an orbital degree of freedom in $`3d`$ and $`f`$ electron systems invites an upsurge of interests, because the coupling of the degree of freedom induces novel and rich variety of physical properties. The strong spin-orbit coupling is characteristic to $`f`$electron systems, hence $`𝑱`$ is the basis of the quantum mechanical description. The magnetic order parameter can be described by a linear combination of $`𝑱`$$`_{Z,\pm }`$. Depending on the interactions, a higher order term could be the primary order parameter. Quadrupolar ordering may occur without any magnetic contribution. The competitive coexistence of dipolar and quadrupolar interactions and their response to pressure and magnetic field induce novel magnetic phenomena.

Recently Yamauchi et al. reported the antiferroquadrupolar (AFQ) order in the rare earth compound DyB2C2dy1  with the tetragonal LaB2C2-type structure RBCcrys\_1 ; RBCcrys\_2 . DyB2C2 undergoes an AFQ transition at $`T_\mathrm{Q}`$=24.7 K. The AFQ order in DyB2C2 was directly confirmed by resonant X-ray scattering technique DyATS\_1 ; DyATS\_2 . Note that $`T_\mathrm{Q}`$ in DyB2C2 is about ten times higher than those of other AFQ materials found to date, though the origin of the strong AFQ interaction is still an open question. Below $`T_\mathrm{N}`$=15.3 K, the antiferromagnetic (AFM) ordering coexists with the AFQ order. The similar coexistent phase has been reported in the isostructural compound HoB2C2Ho\_1 ; Ho\_2 . The AFQ order in the RB2C2 compounds is the first example in which AFQ order is realized in the tetragonal symmetry.

This unusually strong quadrupolar interaction can also be expected in another isostructural compound TbB2C2. TbB2C2 is an antiferromagnet with $`T_\mathrm{N}`$=21.7 K kk3 . TbB2C2 shows an anomalous increase of the magnetic susceptibility below $`T_\mathrm{N}`$kk4 . The magnetic structure has quite similar characteristics to phase IV in HoB2C2 which is the AFM phase adjacent to the AFQ ordered phase kk6 . Moreover, the magnetization processes that show multi-step field-induced transitions are very similar to those in DyB2C2 and HoB2C2. These unusual properties suggest strong AFQ interactions also in TbB2C2. A purpose of this study is to clarify the $`H`$-$`T`$ phase diagram of TbB2C2 to shed light on this strong AFQ interaction in the RB2C2 system. In this paper, we will report the existence of field-induced AFQ phase and its remarkable stability against magnetic fields. TbB2C2 is the first compound which exhibits the field-induced AFQ ordering. Furthermore, we mention that the phase diagrams in the RB2C2 system are systematically understood in terms of the competing AFQ and AFM interactions.

For sample preparation, we used stoichiometric amounts of the constituents, Tb of 99.9%, B of 99.8% and C of 99.999% in purity. The compound was synthesized through the conventional argon arc melting. Single crystalline sample of TbB2C2 was grown by the Czochralski pulling method using a tri-arc furnace. The magnetization was measured by using a SQUID magnetometer (Quantum Design) and vibrating sample magnetometers with a superconducting magnets of up to 14 T (Oxford Instruments) and a water-cooled Bitter-type steady field magnet up to 15 T installed at High Field Laboratory for Superconducting Materials (HFLSM) of Institute for Materials Research (IMR), Tohoku University. The magnetization processes in higher fields up to 30 T were measured using a pulse magnet and a hybrid-type steady field magnet installed at HFLSM of IMR, Tohoku University.

Figure 1 shows magnetization processes of TbB2C2 measured at various temperatures. The insets show the differential d$`M`$/d$`H`$ curves at 4.2 K as functions of magnetic field. For $`H\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}0\hspace{0.17em}0}`$, two successive transitions were observed at $`H`$=7.8 and 8.6 T at 4.2 K. In addition, as clear in the d$`M`$/d$`H`$ curve, a broad anomaly was found around 0.8 T as well. With increasing temperature, the transition at the lowest field becomes broader and shifts to 1.65 T at 22.5 K. This anomaly becomes unclear above 25 K. In contrast, the transitions at 7.8 and 8.6 T shift to lower fields with increasing temperature. These two transition fields approach and merge into a single anomaly at 7.73 T at 14 K. This transition field decreases rapidly and no anomaly was observed above 25 K.

In case for the $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ field direction, a broad transition around 0.5 T together with a sharp anomaly at 16.9 T was observed at 4.2 K. As temperature increases, the lower transition field increases, whereas the higher transition field decreases and disappears at 28 K. The magnetization process for $`H`$\[1 1 0\] is identical to that for \[1 $`\overline{1}`$ 0\] above 0.4 T, although the \[1 1 0\] axis is inequivalent to \[1 $`\overline{1}`$ 0\] in the ground state due to AFM domains kk3 ; kk4 . The existence of low field transition is more clearly confirmed by our recent neutron diffraction experiments kk5 .

Figure 2 shows temperature dependence of the magnetization $`M/H`$ at various magnetic fields along the $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}0\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ and $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ directions. It should be pointed out that the magnetization increases below $`T_\mathrm{N}`$ though TbB2C2 is an antiferromagnet. In general, the magnetic susceptibility of an antiferromagnet decreases or constant below $`T_\mathrm{N}`$. This increase was clearly observed up to 4 T and 11 T for $`H`$$`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}0\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ and $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$, respectively. At higher fields of 14 T for $`H`$$`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$, the magnetization turns to decrease below $`T_\mathrm{N}`$. The unusual increase of magnetization is more prominent in $`H`$$`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ than $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}0\hspace{0.17em}0}`$. In case for $`H`$\[1 $`\overline{1}`$ 0\], a cusp-like anomaly was observed under 0.02 T. This anisotropy is also due to AFM domainskk3 ; kk4 . However, the increase of magnetization below $`T_\mathrm{N}`$ was also observed for $`H`$\[1 $`\overline{1}`$ 0\] above 2 T.

The transition temperature is defined by the temperature of the maximum or minimum of $`\mathrm{d}(M/H)/\mathrm{d}T`$ curves as shown by the arrows in Fig. 2. For $`H`$$`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}0\hspace{0.17em}0}`$, we can clearly observe that the transition temperature increases monotonously from 21.7 K to 25.2 K at 5 T with increasing magnetic fields. In general, the AFM transition temperature should be decreased with the application of magnetic fields. At higher fields, the transition temperature suddenly decreases. The fact that no distinct anomaly was observed in the $`M/H`$ curve at $`H=10\mathrm{T}`$ indicates that the phase boundary closes between 8 and 10 T.

The unusual behavior that the $`T_\mathrm{N}`$ increases with the application of fields is further remarkable for $`H`$$`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$. The transition at $`T_\mathrm{N}`$$`=21.7`$ K shifts drastically to the higher temperature as field increases, and takes the maximum of 35.2 K at 10 T. The transition temperature shows a gradual decrease above 12 T and becomes 31.8 K at 14 T. The close of the phase boundary was not confirmed in this measurement due to the limitation of external field.

The $`H`$-$`T`$ magnetic phase diagrams of TbB2C2 for $`H`$$`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}0\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ and $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ are shown in Fig. 3. The phase I and IV represent the paramagnetic and AFM states, respectively. Our neutron diffraction study revealed that the magnetic structure in phase IV can be described with the propagation vectors of a dominant $`𝒌`$$`{}_{2}{}^{}=(\mathrm{0\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}1}/2)`$ and an additional $`𝒌`$$`{}_{4}{}^{}=(\mathrm{0\hspace{0.17em}0\hspace{0.17em}1}/2)`$ with a longitudinal sinusoidal modulation $`𝒌`$$`{}_{L}{}^{}=(1\pm \delta \pm \delta ,0)`$ where $`\delta `$=0.13 kk3 . This long periodic modulation $`𝒌`$L is consistent with phase IV of HoB2C2 which is adjacent to the AFQ phase kk6 . The most remarkable feature in the magnetic phase diagram of TbB2C2 is the existence of the field-induced phases (II and III) which are stable in a wide field range from $``$0.8 T to 9 T ($`H`$$`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}0\hspace{0.17em}0}`$) and 17 T ($`H`$$`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$). We can clearly recognize that the magnetic field cause the unusual enhancement of the AFM transition temperature as much as 13.5 K for the $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ direction in Fig. 3.

In order to identify the phase II and III, the magnetization processes of TbB2C2 were compared with those of DyB2C2 and HoB2C2. Figure 4 shows the magnetization processes of TbB2C2 at 4.2 K together with those of DyB2C2dy1  and HoB2C2Ho\_1 ; hd  at 1.5 K. The applied magnetic field was normalized with the critical field $`H_\mathrm{c}`$ for $`H`$$`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ for comparison. As clearly seen, the magnetization curves of TbB2C2 are very similar to those of DyB2C2 and HoB2C2. In the latter compounds, there is a very wide field region where the AFQ phase II is stable, when the field is parallel to the $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ direction. (See the lower panel in Fig. 4.) Therefore, we tentatively assign that the field induced phase in TbB2C2 for $`H`$$`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ would be the AFQ phase. In lower fields, DyB2C2 and HoB2C2 show two-step transitions leading to the phase III and III, in which the AFQ and AFM order coexists. The difference between phase III and III is most probably the periodicity along the \[0 0 1\] direction in their magnetic structure dy3 . On the other hand, the two-step transition was not clearly observed in TbB2C2. Thus it is indistinct from the present magnetization measurement whether the phase III and III exist in TbB2C2 for $`H`$$`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}0}`$.

When the field is applied along the $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}0\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ direction, phase III, the coexistent phase of AFQ and AFM order, shows remarkable stability against magnetic fields. The phase III is transformed into the paramagnetic state through the intermediate phase III in DyB2C2, while the phase III of HoB2C2 directly undergoes magnetic transition to phase I around $`H/H_\mathrm{c}`$0.5. TbB2C2 also exhibits the successive transitions around $`H/H_\mathrm{c}`$0.5. Therefore, we suggest that the field-induced phase in TbB2C2 from $`H/H_\mathrm{c}`$0.047 to 0.46 would be phase III. Furthermore, the successive transition around $`H/H_\mathrm{c}`$0.5 would be indicative of the existence of the very narrow intermediate phase III. Neutron diffraction experiments under magnetic fields are highly interesting to confirm the field-induced AFQ phase in TbB2C2. The existence of AFQ ordering in phase II and III stabilized with magnetic field could be interpreted that the strong AFQ interaction does exist in TbB2C2 as well.

The $`H`$-$`T`$ phase diagrams in the RB2C2 system can be understood in terms of competition of the AFQ and AFM interactions. The most distinct character in DyB2C2 is the existence of the pure AFQ phase II at $`H`$=0 without any magnetic contribution. It could be understood that the AFQ interaction is strong enough that the AFQ ordering survives as an intermediate phase to the paramagnetic phase. In case of HoB2C2, however, the pure AFQ phase can only be stabilized in finite magnetic fields. For $`H`$=0, the AFQ ordering is accompanied with the AFM ordering. In TbB2C2, the AFM interaction does not allow AFQ ordering under zero magnetic field, and the AFQ ordering is only realized under magnetic fields. It should be noted, however, that the AFM phase (phase IV) lies adjacent to the AFQ phase and is strongly affected by the AFQ interaction.

The unusual enhancement of $`T_\mathrm{N}`$ with magnetic field is a distinctive character in TbB2C2. The increase of $`T_\mathrm{N}`$ in TbB2C2 reaches 13.5 K which corresponding to $``$1 K/T. This enhancement is quite large in comparison with DyB2C2 and HoB2C2. In these compounds, the AFQ transition temperature increases relatively small about 1 K. The increase of $`T_\mathrm{Q}`$ was also reported for other AFQ materials CeB6ceb6\_0 ; ceb6  and PrPb3prpb\_1 . In PrPb3 with non-magnetic $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_3`$ ground state, the interaction between field-induced staggered moments stabilizes the AFQ order. However, the increase of the transition temperature reaches only 0.3 K at 6 T. With respect to CeB6, the AFQ transition temperature $`T_\mathrm{Q}`$=3.3 K is raised to 9.5 K by the external field of 30 T ceb6\_5 . Recent theoretical works succeeded to explain this anomalous increase of $`T_\mathrm{Q}`$ in CeB6 by taking octupolar interaction into account ceb6\_2 ; ceb6\_1 ; ceb6\_4 ; ceb6\_3 . An antiferro-type interaction between field-induced octupoles stabilizes the AFQ order against magnetic fields. It is, therefore, supposed that the octupolar moments in TbB2C2 have an important role in the magnetic behavior than that in DyB2C2 and HoB2C2.

In conclusion, the antiferromagnet TbB2C2 is under the strong influence of AFQ interactions. We suggest that TbB2C2 is the first compound which shows the field-induced AFQ ordering. The comparison of the magnetic phase diagrams of TbB2C2 with those of DyB2C2 and HoB2C2 indicates the essential role of competing AFQ and AFM interactions in RB2C2 system.

The authors would like to thank N. Metoki for stimulating discussions. The staff of HFLSM of IMR is gratefully acknowledged for operation of the high-field magnets. This work was supported partially by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No. 12304017) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Within the standard QCD parton model the virtual photoabsorption cross section is proportional to the density of partons in the target. Inverting the argument, one would define the density of partons in a target $`A`$ as

$$F_2(x,Q^2)=\underset{f}{}e_f^2[q_f(x,Q^2)+\overline{q}_f(x,Q^2)]=\frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha _{em}}\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A}$$
(1)
In the so-called brick-wall or Breit frame, in which the photon has a zero energy and the (target) hadron or nucleus is ultrarelativistic, DIS amounts to backward reflection of the parton with the longitudinal momentum $`k_z=xP_z=\frac{1}{2}q_z=\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{Q^2}`$, see fig.1.

When DIS is viewed in the laboratory frame, the hadronic properties of photons suggest  a nuclear shadowing by which the density of partons in a nucleus rises slower than $`A`$. Very heavy nuclei will be opaque to a part of the Fock states of the photon . When viewed in the Breit frame, the Lorentz contraction of an ultrarelativistic nucleus entails a spatial overlap and fusion of partons at

$$x\text{ }<x_A=\frac{1}{R_Am_N}$$
(2)
as indicated in fig. 2.

This interpretation of nuclear opacity in terms of a fusion and saturation of nuclear partons has been introduced in 1975  way before the QCD parton model. The review of early works on nuclear shadowing can be found in lectures by one of the authors at the 1976 Winter School of PNPI , see also . The pQCD link between nuclear opacity and saturation has been considered in ref.  and by Mueller , the pQCD discussion of fusion of nuclear gluons has been revived by McLerran et al. .

The common wisdom is that in DIS the final state (FS) interaction of the struck parton, which in the Breit frame moves in the direction opposite to the debris of the nucleon/nucleus, see fig. 2, can be neglected and the observed transverse and longitudinal momentum distribution of struck partons in the FS coincides with the initial state (IS) density of partons in the probed hadron. Based on the consistent treatment of intranuclear distortions, we derive the two-plateau spectrum of FS quarks found in . Following our early analysis of diffractive DIS off nucleons  and nuclei , we introduce the collective Weizsäcker-Williams gluon structure function of the nucleus, which uniquely defines all nuclear DIS observables. We find a substantial nuclear broadening of inclusive FS spectra and demonstrate that despite this broadening the FS sea parton density exactly equals the IS sea parton density calculated in terms of the WW glue of the nucleus as defined according to . We pay special attention to an important point that diffractive DIS in which the target nucleus does not break and is retained in the ground state, makes precisely 50 per cent of the total DIS events for heavy nuclei at small $`x`$ . We point out that the saturated diffractive plateau measures precisely the momentum distribution of (anti-)quarks in the $`q\overline{q}`$ Fock state of the photon. In contrast to DIS off nuclei, the fraction of DIS off free nucleons which is diffractive, and which also measures unitarity corrections to the two-gluon exchange approximation , is negligibly small , $`\eta _D\text{ }<`$ 6-10 %, and there is little room for genuine saturation effects even at HERA. We show how the anti-collinear splitting of WW gluons into sea quarks gives rise to nuclear saturation of the sea despite a substantial nuclear dilution of the WW glue.

After establishing the properties of the single-jet inclusive cross section, we turn our attention to the recent theory of jet-jet (de)correlations . After a hard scattering partons with large transverse momentum fragment into a high-energy jet of particles. In deep inelastic scattering at small $`x`$, to the collinear approximation, the photon-gluon fusion $`\gamma ^{}gq\overline{q}`$, often referred to as an interaction of the unresolved photon, gives rise to the back-to-back jets in the current or photon fragmentation region. The experimental signature of the unresolved photon interaction is that the so-called lightcone plus-components of the jet momenta sum up to the lightcone plus-component of the photon’s momentum. The allowance for the transverse momentum of gluons leads to the disparity of the momenta and azimuthal decorrelation of the quark and antiquark jets, which within the $`k_{}`$-factorization can be quantified in terms of the so-called unintegrated gluon structure function of the target (see  and references therein).

In view of the substantial nuclear broadening of the unintegrated gluon SF of nuclei it is natural to expect stronger azimuthal decorrelation of jets produced in DIS off nuclei. In these lectures we report a consistent multiple-scattering theory of jet-jet decorrelation in the genuinely inelastic DIS followed by color excitation of the target nucleus. For heavy nuclei of equal importance is coherent diffractive DIS in which the target nucleus does not break and is retained in the ground state. In these coherent diffractive events quark and antiquark jets are produced exactly back-to-back with negligibly small transverse decorrelation momentum

$$|𝚫|=|𝐩_++𝐩_{}|\text{ }<1/R_Am_\pi /A^{1/3},$$
(3)
where $`R_A`$ is the radius of the target nucleus. For hard jets diffractive attenuation effects are weak and we report a compact formula for the broadening of azimuthal correlations between the quark and antiquark jets. In this case the decorrelation (acoplanarity, out-of-plane) momentum is given by the nuclear saturation momentum $`Q_A`$. Then we prove a disappearance of the jet-jet correlation for minijets with the transverse momentum below the saturation scale $`Q_A`$. In the Conclusions we summarize our principal findings and speculate on their relevance to the recent observation of the dissolution of the away jets in central nuclear collisions at RHIC .

## 2 Quark and antiquark jets in DIS off free nucleons: single particle spectrum and jet-jet decorrelation

We recall briefly the color dipole formulation of DIS  and illustrate our ideas on an example of jet-jet decorrelation in DIS off free nucleons which at moderately small $`x`$ is dominated by interactions of $`q\overline{q}`$ states of the photon. We evaluate the jet production cross section at the parton level. The total cross section for interaction of the color dipole $`𝐫`$ with the target nucleon equals

$`\sigma (r)`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _S(r)\sigma _0{\displaystyle d^2𝜿f(𝜿)\left[1\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿𝐫)\right]}`$ (4)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha _S(r)\sigma _0{\displaystyle d^2𝜿f(𝜿)\left[1\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿𝐫)\right]\left[1\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿𝐫)\right]},`$
where $`f(𝜿)`$ is related to the unintegrated glue of the target nucleon by

$`f(𝜿)={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{N_c\sigma _0}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\kappa ^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{G}{\mathrm{log}\kappa ^2}}`$ (5)
and is normalized as

$`{\displaystyle d^2𝜿f(𝜿)}=1.`$ (6)
For DIS off a free nucleon target, see figs. 3a-3d, the total photoabsorption cross section equals

$`\sigma _N={\displaystyle d^2𝐫𝑑z|\mathrm{\Psi }(z,𝐫)|^2\sigma (𝐫)}.`$ (7)
Upon the relevant Fourier transformations one finds the momentum spectrum of the final state (FS) quark prior the hadronization,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _N}{d^2𝐩dz}}={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _0}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _S(𝐩^2)}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle d^2𝜿f(𝜿)\left|\gamma ^{}|𝐩\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿\right|^2}`$ (8)
where $`𝐩`$ is the transverse momentum of the quark and $`z_+=z`$ and $`z_{}=1z`$ are the fractions of photon’s lightcone momentum carried by the quark and antiquark, respectively. The variables $`z_\pm `$ for the observed jets add up to unity which is the signature of the unresolved photon interaction.

For the reference, we cite here the relevant overlap of the momentum space wave functions of the photon, summed over the helicities of the FS quark and antiquark . For transverse photons

$`\left(\gamma ^{}|𝐩\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿\right)`$ $`(𝐩|\gamma ^{}𝐩𝜿|\gamma ^{})|_{\lambda _\gamma =\pm 1}=`$
$`2N_ce_f^2\alpha _{em}\times \{[z^2+(1z)^2]`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{𝐩}{𝐩^2+\epsilon ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{𝐩𝜿}{(𝐩𝜿)^2+\epsilon ^2}}\right)`$
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{𝐩}{𝐩^2+\epsilon ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{𝐩𝜿}{(𝐩𝜿)^2+\epsilon ^2}}\right)|_{\lambda +\overline{\lambda }=0}`$
$`+m_f^2`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{𝐩^2+\epsilon ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(𝐩𝜿)^2+\epsilon ^2}}\right)`$
$``$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{1}{𝐩^2+\epsilon ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(𝐩𝜿)^2+\epsilon ^2}})|_{\lambda +\overline{\lambda }=\lambda _\gamma }\}`$ (9)
and for the longitudinal photons

$`\left(\gamma ^{}|𝐩\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿\right)`$ $`\left(𝐩|\gamma ^{}𝐩𝜿|\gamma ^{}\right)|_{\lambda _\gamma =0}`$
$`=8N_ce_f^2\alpha _{em}`$ $`Q^2z^2(1z)^2`$
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{𝐩^2+\epsilon ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(𝐩𝜿)^2+\epsilon ^2}}\right)`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{𝐩^2+\epsilon ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(𝐩𝜿)^2+\epsilon ^2}}\right)|_{\lambda +\overline{\lambda }=\lambda _\gamma }`$ (10)
where

$$\epsilon ^2=z(1z)Q^2+m_f^2$$
(11)
and $`m_f`$ is the mass of the quark $`q_f`$ with the charge $`e_f`$. Now, notice that the transverse momentum of the gluon is precisely the decorrelation momentum $`𝚫`$, so that in the still further differential from

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _N}{dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝚫}}={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _0}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _S(𝐩^2)}{(2\pi )^2}}f(𝚫)\left|\gamma ^{}|𝐩_+\gamma ^{}|𝐩_+𝚫\right|^2`$ (12)
A useful small-$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ expansion for light flavors is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _N}{dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝚫}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N_ce_f^2\alpha _{em}\sigma _0\alpha _S(𝐩^2)}{(2\pi )^2}}\left[z^2+(1z)^2\right]`$ (13)
$`\times `$ $`f(𝚫)\left\{\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^2𝐩_+^2}{(\epsilon ^2+𝐩_+^2)^2}}\right]^2\mathrm{\Delta }_L^2+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon ^2+𝐩_+^2}}\right]^2\mathrm{\Delta }_{}^2\right\}`$
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_L`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}`$ are the components of the decorrelation parallel, and transverse, to $`𝐩_+`$. Only the latter, acoplanarity component, contributes to the azimuthal jet-jet decorrelation, the former is only measurable if full experimental reconstruction of jets is possible. This is the leading order result from the $`k_{}`$ factorization, for the applications to DIS off free nucleons see  and references therein. Below we shall extend (12) to jet-jet inclusive cross section for interactions of unresolved photons with nuclear targets.

## 3 Propagation of color dipoles in nuclear medium

We focus on DIS at $`x\text{ }<x_A=1/R_Am_N1`$ which is dominated by interactions of $`q\overline{q}`$ states of the photon. Extension to interactions of higher Fock states of the photon is straightforward and will give rise to the evolution effects, which we do not consider here. For $`x\text{ }<x_A`$ the propagation of the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair inside nucleus can be treated in the straight-path approximation.

We work in the conventional approximation of two t-channel gluons in DIS off free nucleons. The relevant unitarity cuts of the forward Compton scattering amplitude are shown in fig. 3a-3d and describe the transition from the color-neutral $`q\overline{q}`$ dipole to the color-octet $`q\overline{q}`$ pair. (Really, for $`SU(N_c)`$ we have fundamental & adjoint multiplets instead of the triplet & octet familiar for $`N_c=3`$, our continuous reference to the latter should not cause any confusion.) The two-gluon exchange approximation amounts to neglecting small unitarity corrections to DIS off free nucleons , which are quantified by diffractive DIS described by higher order diagrams of fig. 3e,3f. This approximation is justified by a small fraction of diffractive DIS, $`\eta _D1`$ . The unitarity cuts of the nuclear Compton scattering amplitude which correspond to the genuine inelastic DIS with color excitation of the nucleus are shown in figs. 3j,3k. Here we notice that in the diagram 3k the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair propagates in the both color-octet and color-singlet states.

Let $`𝐛_+`$ and $`𝐛_{}`$ be the impact parameters of the quark and antiquark, respectively, and $`S_A(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})`$ be the S-matrix for interaction of the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair with the nucleus. We are interested in the inclusive cross section when we sum over all excitations of the target nucleus when one or several nucleons have been color excited. A convenient way to sum such cross sections is offered by the closure relation. Regarding the color states $`c_{km}`$ of the $`q_k\overline{q}_m`$ pair, we sum over all octet and singlet states. Then, the the 2-body inclusive spectrum is calculated in terms of the 2-body density matrix as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{in}}{dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝐩_{}}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle d^2𝐛_+^{}d^2𝐛_{}^{}d^2𝐛_+d^2𝐛_{}}`$
$`\times \mathrm{exp}[i𝐩_+(𝐛_+𝐛_+^{})i𝐩_{}(𝐛_{}𝐛_{}^{})]`$
$`\times \mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐛_+^{}𝐛_{}^{})\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐛_+𝐛_{})`$
$`\times \{{\displaystyle \underset{A^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{km}{}}1;A|S_A^{}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{})|A^{};c_{km}c_{km};A^{}|S_A(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|A;1`$
$`1;A|S_A^{}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{})|A;11;A|S_A(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|A;1\}`$ (14)
Here $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is the $`q\overline{q}`$–Fock state wave function of the virtual photon, and we suppressed its dependence on $`z_\pm `$. In the integrand of (14) we subtracted the diffractive component of the final state. Notice, that the four straight-path trajectories $`𝐛_\pm ,𝐛_\pm ^{}`$ enter the calculation of the full fledged 2-body density matrix and $`S_A`$ and $`S_A^{}`$ describe the propagation of two $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs inside a nucleus.

Upon the application of closure to sum over nuclear final states $`A^{}`$ the integrand of (14) can be considered as an intranuclear evolution operator for the 2-body density matrix (for the related discussion see ref. )

$`{\displaystyle \underset{A^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{km}{}}A|\left\{1|S_A^{}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{})|c_{km}\right\}|A^{}A^{}|\left\{c_{km}|S_A(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|1\right\}|A=`$
$`=A|\left\{{\displaystyle \underset{km}{}}1|S_A^{}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{})|c_{km}c_{km}|S_A(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|1\right\}|A`$ (15)
Let the QCD eikonal for the quark-nucleon and antiquark-nucleon one-gluon exchange interaction be $`T_+^a\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐛)`$ and $`T_{}^a\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐛)`$, where $`T_+^a`$ and $`T_{}^a`$ are the $`SU(N_c)`$ generators for the quark and antiquark states, respectively. The vertex $`V_a`$ for excitation of the nucleon $`g^aNN_a^{}`$ into color octet state is so normalized that after application of closure the vertex $`g^ag^bNN`$ in the diagrams of fig. 3a-3d is $`\delta _{ab}`$. Then, to the two-gluon exchange approximation, the $`S`$-matrix of the $`(q\overline{q})`$-nucleon interaction equals

$`S_N(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})=1+i[T_+^a\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐛_+)+T_{}^a\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐛_{})]V_a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[T_+^a\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐛_+)+T_{}^a\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐛_{})]^2`$ (16)
and the color-dipole cross section for the $`q\overline{q}`$ dipole is

$`\sigma (𝐛_+𝐛_{})={\displaystyle \frac{N_c^21}{2N_c}}{\displaystyle d^2𝐛_+[\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐛_+)\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐛_{})]^2}.`$ (17)
The nuclear $`S`$-matrix of the straight-path approximation is given by

$`S_A(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{A}{}}}S_N(𝐛_+𝐛_j,𝐛_{}𝐛_j)`$ (18)
where $`𝐛_j`$ are the transverse coordinates of nucleons in a nucleus and the ordering along the longitudinal path is understood. We evaluate the nuclear expectation value in (15) in the standard dilute gas approximation. To the two-gluon exchange approximation, only the terms quadratic in $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐛_j)`$ must be kept in the evaluation of the single-nucleon matrix element

$$N_j|S_N^{}(𝐛_+^{}𝐛_j,𝐛_{}^{}𝐛_j)S_N(𝐛_+𝐛_j,𝐛_{}𝐛_j)|N_j$$

per each and every nucleon which enters the calculation of $`S_A^{}S_A`$. Following the technique developed in  we can reduce the calculation of the evolution operator for the 2-body density matrix (15) to the evaluation of the $`S`$-matrix $`S_{4A}(𝐛_+,𝐛_{},𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{})`$ for a scattering of a fictitious 4-parton state composed of the two quark-antiquark pairs in the overall color-singlet state. Because $`(T_+^a)^{}=T_{}^a`$, within the two-gluon exchange approximation the quarks entering the complex-conjugate $`S_A^{}`$ in (15) can be viewed as antiquarks, so that

$`\left\{{\displaystyle \underset{km}{}}1|S_A^{}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{})|c_{km}c_{km}|S_A(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|1\right\}=`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{kmjl}{}}\delta _{kl}\delta _{mj}c_{km}c_{jl}|S_{4A}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{},𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|11`$ (19)
where $`S_{4A}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{},𝐛_+,𝐛_{})`$ is an S-matrix for the propagation of the two quark-antiquark pairs in the overall singlet state. While the first $`q\overline{q}`$ pair is formed by the initial quark $`q`$ and antiquark $`\overline{q}`$ at impact parameters $`𝐛_+`$ and $`𝐛_{}`$, respectively, in the second pair $`q^{}\overline{q}^{}`$ the quark $`q^{}`$ propagates at an impact parameter $`𝐛_{}^{}`$ and the antiquark $`\overline{q}^{}`$ at an impact parameter $`𝐛_+^{}`$, as indicated in fig. 4. In the initial state the both quark-antiquark pairs are in color-singlet states: $`|in=|11`$.

Let us introduce the normalized singlet-singlet and octet-octet states

$$|11=\frac{1}{N_c}(\overline{q}q)(\overline{q}^{}q^{})$$
(20)
$$|88=\frac{2}{\sqrt{N_c^21}}(\overline{q}T^aq)(\overline{q}^{}T^aq^{})$$
(21)
where $`N_c`$ is the number of colors and $`T^a`$ are the generators of $`SU(N_c)`$. Making use of the color Fiertz identity,

$$\delta _{km}\delta _{jl}=\frac{1}{N_c}\delta _l^k\delta _j^m+2\underset{a}{}(T^a)_l^k(T^a)_j^m$$
(22)
the sum over color states of the produced quark-antiquark pair can be represented as

$`{\displaystyle \underset{km}{}}c_{km}c_{km}|S_{4A}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{},𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|11=11|S_{4A}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{},𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|11`$
$`+\sqrt{N_c^21}88|S_{4A}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{},𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|11`$ (23)
If $`\sigma _4(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{},𝐛_+,𝐛_{})`$ is the color-dipole cross section operator for the 4-body state, then the standard evaluation of the nuclear expectation value for a dilute gas nucleus gives

$`S_{4A}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{},𝐛_+,𝐛_{})=\mathrm{exp}\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma _4(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{},𝐛_+,𝐛_{})T(𝐛)\}`$ (24)
where

$`T(𝐛)={\displaystyle 𝑑zn_A(z,𝐛)}`$ (25)
is the optical thickness of a nucleus at an impact parameter $`𝐛𝐛_\pm ,𝐛_\pm ^{}`$. In writing down (19) we employed the standard approximation of neglecting the size of color dipoles compared to a radius of heavy nucleus. The single-nucleon $`S`$-matrix (16) contains transitions from the color-singlet to the both color-singlet and color-octet $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs. However, only the color-singlet operators contribute to $`N_j|S_N^{}(𝐛_+^{}𝐛_j,𝐛_{}^{}𝐛_j)S_N(𝐛_+𝐛_j,𝐛_{}𝐛_j)|N_j`$, and the matrix $`\sigma _4(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{},𝐛_+,𝐛_{})`$ only includes transitions between the $`|11`$ and $`|88`$ color-singlet 4-parton states, the $`|18`$ states are not allowed.

Performing the relevant color algebra, we find

$`11|\sigma _4|11=\sigma (𝐛_+𝐛_{})+\sigma (𝐛_+^{}𝐛_{}^{})`$ (26)
$`11|\sigma _4|88={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N_c^21}}}[`$ $`\sigma (𝐛_{}𝐛_{}^{})+\sigma (𝐛_+𝐛_+^{})`$
$``$ $`\sigma (𝐛_+𝐛_{}^{})\sigma (𝐛_{}𝐛_+^{})]`$ (27)
$`88|\sigma _4|88=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N_c^22}{N_c^21}}[[\sigma (𝐛_+𝐛_+^{})+\sigma (𝐛_{}𝐛_{}^{})]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{N_c^21}}[\sigma (𝐛_+𝐛_{}^{})+\sigma (𝐛_{}𝐛_+^{})]`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c^21}}[\sigma (𝐛_+𝐛_{})+\sigma (𝐛_+^{}𝐛_{}^{})]`$ (28)
The term in (14), which subtracts the contribution from processes without color excitation of the target nucleus, equals

$`A|\left\{1|S_A^{}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{})|1\right\}|AA|\left\{1|S_A(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|1\right\}|A`$
$`=\mathrm{exp}\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\sigma (𝐛_+𝐛_{})+\sigma (𝐛_+^{}𝐛_{}^{})\right]T(𝐛)\}`$ (29)
Let $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{1,2}`$ be the two eigenvalues of the operator $`\sigma _4`$. Then it is convenient to use the Sylvester expansion

$`\mathrm{exp}\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma _4T(𝐛)\}=`$
$`\mathrm{exp}\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_1T(𝐛)\}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _4\mathrm{\Sigma }_2}{\mathrm{\Sigma }_1\mathrm{\Sigma }_2}}+\mathrm{exp}\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_2T(𝐛)\}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _4\mathrm{\Sigma }_1}{\mathrm{\Sigma }_2\mathrm{\Sigma }_1}}`$ (30)
Evidently, in the general case the eigen-cross sections are fairly complex functions of the six possible dipoles formed by four partons. One may wonder how do the standard color-dipole Glauber-Gribov formulas  for nuclear DIS cross sections emerge from (30)? Hence we turn first to the simpler cases of the total inelastic and single-jet inclusive cross sections. An application to (23) of the Sylvester expansion gives

$`(11|+\sqrt{N_c^21}88|)\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma _4T(𝐛)\right\}|11`$
$`\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})\right]T(𝐛)\right\}`$
$`=\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_2T(𝐛)\right\}\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})\right]T(𝐛)\right\}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{11|\sigma _4|11\mathrm{\Sigma }_2}{\mathrm{\Sigma }_1\mathrm{\Sigma }_2}}\left\{\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_1T(𝐛)\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_2T(𝐛)\right]\right\}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{N_c^21}11|\sigma _4|88}{\mathrm{\Sigma }_1\mathrm{\Sigma }_2}}\left\{\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_1T(𝐛)\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_2T(𝐛)\right]\right\}`$ (31)
## 4 Non-Abelian aspects of propagation of color dipoles in nuclear medium and Glauber-Gribov formalism

In order to get an insight into the impact of propagation of the color-octet $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs inside a nucleus let us consider first the total inelastic cross section obtained from (14) upon the integration over the transverse momenta $`𝐩_\pm `$ of the quark and antiquark. Such an integration amounts to putting $`𝐛_+=𝐛_+^{}`$ and $`𝐛_{}=𝐛_{}^{}`$. Then we are left with the system of two color dipoles of the same size $`𝐫=𝐛_+𝐛_{}=𝐫^{}=𝐛_+^{}𝐛_{}^{}`$, and the matrix of the 4-body cross sections has the eigenvalues

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1=0,`$ (32)
$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2={\displaystyle \frac{2N_c^2}{N_c^21}}\sigma (𝐫)`$ (33)
with the eigenstates

$`|f_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}(|11+\sqrt{N_c^21}|88),`$ (34)
$`|f_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}(\sqrt{N_c^21}|11|88).`$ (35)
The eigen-cross section (33) differs from $`\sigma (𝐫)`$ for the color-singlet $`q\overline{q}`$ pair by the nontrivial color factor $`N_c^2/(N_c^21)`$. The existence of the non-attenuating 4-quark state with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1=0`$ is quite obvious and corresponds to an overlap of two dipoles of the same size with neutralization of color charges.

Now notice, that the final state which enters the calculation of the genuine inelastic DIS off a nucleus, see eq. (23), is precisely the eigenstate $`|f_1`$. Then, even without invoking the Sylvester expansion (30), (31), the straightforward result for the inelastic cross section is

$`\sigma _{in}=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2𝐫𝑑z|\mathrm{\Psi }(z,𝐫)|^2}`$
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle d^2𝐛\left\{N_cf_1|\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\sigma _4T(𝐛)\right]|11\mathrm{exp}\left[\sigma (𝐫)T(𝐛)\right]\right\}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2𝐛\gamma ^{}|\left\{\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Sigma }_1T(𝐛)\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\sigma (𝐫)T(𝐛)\right]\right\}|\gamma ^{}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2𝐛\gamma ^{}|\left\{1\mathrm{exp}\left[\sigma (𝐫)T(𝐛)\right]\right\}|\gamma ^{}}`$ (36)
what is precisely the Glauber-Gribov formula  in which no trace of a propagation inside a nucleus of the eigenstate (35) with the eigen-cross section (33) is left.

When the final state $`q\overline{q}`$ is produced in the color-singlet state, the net flow of color between the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair and color-excited debris of the target nucleus is zero. Which suggests that a rapidity gap may survive upon the hadronization, although whether a rapidity gap in genuine inelastic events with color-singlet $`q\overline{q}`$ production is stable against higher order correction or not remains an interesting open issue. Here we proceed under the assumption that the rapidity gap survives and the production of the color-singlet and color-octet $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs can be separated. Although the debris of the target nucleus have a zero net color charge, the color-excited debris of nucleons are spatially separated by a distance of the order of the nuclear radius. The formation of color strings between the color centers would lead to a total excitation energy of the order of 1 GeV times $`A^{1/3}`$, so that such a rapidity-gap events would look like a double diffraction with multiple production of mesons in the nucleus fragmentation region (for the theoretical discussion of conventional mechanisms of diffraction excitation of nuclei in proton-nucleus collisions see , the experimental observation has been reported in ). As such it is distinguishable from quasielastic diffractive DIS followed by excitation and breakup of the target nucleus without production of secondary particles.

Making use of the Sylvester expansion (30)-(31), and the eigenstates (34),(35), one readily obtains

$`\sigma _{in}(A^{}(q\overline{q})_1)=`$
$`{\displaystyle d^2𝐛\gamma ^{}|\left\{(1\mathrm{exp}\left[\sigma (𝐫)T(𝐛)\right])\frac{N_c^21}{N_c^2}(1\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Sigma }_2T(𝐛)\right])\right\}|\gamma ^{}}`$ (37)
and

$`\sigma _{in}(A^{}(q\overline{q})_8)={\displaystyle \frac{N_c^21}{N_c^2}}{\displaystyle d^2𝐛\gamma ^{}|\left\{1\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Sigma }_2T(𝐛)\right]\right\}|\gamma ^{}}.`$ (38)
In the latter case the nontrivial eigen-cross section $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$ enters explicitly.

Several features of the result (37) are noteworthy. First, the color neutralization of the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair after the first inelastic interaction requires at least one secondary inelastic interaction. Indeed, an expansion of the integrand starts with the term quadratic in the optical thickness:

$`\left\{(1\mathrm{exp}\left[\sigma (𝐫)T(𝐛)\right]){\displaystyle \frac{N_c^21}{N_c^2}}(1\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_2T(𝐛)\right])\right\}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2(𝐫)T^2(𝐛)}{2(N_c^21)}}+\mathrm{}`$ (39)
Second, in the large-$`N_c`$ limit the color octet state tends to oscillate in color remaining in the octet state. This is clearly seen from (39). Third, in the limit of an opaque nucleus

$`\sigma _{in}(A^{}(q\overline{q})_1)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c^2}}{\displaystyle d^2𝐛\gamma ^{}|\left\{1\mathrm{exp}\left[\sigma (𝐫)T(𝐛)\right]\right\}|\gamma ^{}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c^2}}\sigma _{in}`$ (40)
and remains a constant fraction of DIS in contrast to the quasielastic diffractive DIS or inelastic diffractive excitation of a nucleus, the cross sections of which vanish for an opaque nucleus .

The result (38) shows how the non-Abelian nature of the propagation of color dipoles inside a nucleus which manifests itself via the eigen-cross section (33) distinct from $`\sigma (𝐫)`$ reveals itself in the total cross section of inelastic DIS with excitation of dijets in the color-octet state.

An analysis of the single-parton, alias the single-jet, inclusive cross section is quite similar. In this case we integrate over the momentum $`𝐩_{}`$ of the antiquark jet, so that $`𝐛_{}^{}=𝐛_{}`$. The matrix $`\sigma _4`$ has the eigenvalues

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1=\sigma (𝐫𝐫^{})`$ (41)
$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2={\displaystyle \frac{N_c^2}{N_c^21}}\left[\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})\right]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c^21}}\sigma (𝐫𝐫^{})`$ (42)
with exactly the same eigenstates $`|f_1`$ and $`|f_2`$ as given by eqs. (34),(35). Again, the cross section of genuine inelastic DIS corresponds to projection onto the eigenstate $`|f_1`$, so that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{in}}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩dz}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle d^2𝐫^{}d^2𝐫\mathrm{exp}[i𝐩(𝐫^{}𝐫)]\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐫^{})\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫)}`$ (43)
$`\times `$ $`\left\{\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_1T(𝐛)]\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})]T(𝐛)]\right\}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle d^2𝐫^{}d^2𝐫\mathrm{exp}[i𝐩(𝐫^{}𝐫)]\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐫^{})\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫)}`$
$`\times `$ $`\left\{\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma (𝐫𝐫^{})T(𝐛)]\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})]T(𝐛)]\right\}.`$
## 5 The Pomeron-Splitting Mechanism for Diffractive Hard Dijets and Weizsäcker-Williams glue of nuclei

At QCD parton level diffraction dissociation of photons and hadrons is modeled by excitation of $`q\overline{q},q\overline{q}g,\mathrm{}`$ Fock states which are lifted on their mass shell through the $`t`$–channel exchange of a QCD Pomeron with the target hadron. The color singlet two–gluon structure of the Pomeron gives rise to the two distinct forward $`q\overline{q}`$ dijet production subprocesses: The first one, of fig. 3e (also fig. 5a), is a counterpart of the classic Landau-Pomeranchuk  mechanism of diffraction dissociation of deuterons into the proton–neutron continuum and can be dubbed the splitting of the beam particle into the dijet, because the transverse momentum $`𝐤`$ of jets comes from the intrinsic transverse momentum of quarks and antiquarks in the beam particle. Specific of QCD is the mechanism of fig. 3f (also fig. 5b) where jets receive a transverse momentum from gluons in the Pomeron. In an extension of the early work , in  it was shown that the second mechanism dominates at a sufficiently large $`𝐤`$ and in this regime diffractive amplitudes are proportional to the differential (unintegrated) gluon structure function $`(x,𝐤^2)=G(x,𝐤^2)/\mathrm{log}𝐤^2`$. Correspondingly, this mechanism has been dubbed splitting of the Pomeron into dijets. In diffractive DIS the Pomeron splitting dominates at $`kQ`$, whereas the somewhat modified Landau et al. mechanism dominates at $`k\text{ }<Q`$.

Motivated by the recent data from the E791 Fermilab experiment , here we discuss peculiarities of the Pomeron splitting mechanism on an example of diffractive excitation of pions into dijets on free nucleon and nuclear targets. In a slight adaption of the results of  one should replace the pointlike $`\gamma ^{}q\overline{q}`$ vertex $`eA_\mu \overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\gamma _\mu \mathrm{\Psi }`$ by the non–pointlike $`\pi q\overline{q}`$ vertex $`i\mathrm{\Gamma }(M^2)\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\gamma _5\mathrm{\Psi }`$. Here $`M^2=(𝐤^2+m_f^2)/z(1z)`$ is the invariant mass squared of the dijet system, the pion momentum is shared by the jets in the partitioning $`z,1z`$. The explicit form of the spinor vertex reads

$$\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_\lambda (𝐤)\gamma _5\mathrm{\Psi }_{\overline{\lambda }}(𝐤)=\frac{\lambda }{\sqrt{z(1z)}}[m_f\delta _{\lambda \overline{\lambda }}\sqrt{2}𝐤𝐞_\lambda \delta _{\lambda \overline{\lambda }}],$$
(44)
where $`m_f`$ is the quark mass, $`\lambda `$ and $`\overline{\lambda }`$ are the quark and antiquark helicities and $`𝐞_\lambda =(\lambda 𝐞_x+i𝐞_y)/\sqrt{2}`$. The two helicity amplitudes $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0(z,𝐤,𝚫)`$ for $`\lambda +\overline{\lambda }=0`$ and $`𝚽_1(z,𝐤,𝚫)`$ for $`\lambda +\overline{\lambda }=\pm 1`$, can be cast in the form (we concentrate on the forward limit, $`𝚫=0`$)

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_0(z,𝐤)=\alpha _S(𝐤^2)\sigma _0\left[{\displaystyle d^2𝜿m_f\psi _\pi (z,𝐤)f(𝜿)}{\displaystyle d^2𝜿m_f\psi _\pi (z,𝜿)f(𝐤𝜿)}\right],`$ (45)
and $`𝚽_1`$ is obtained from the substitution $`m_f\psi (z,𝐤)𝐤\psi (z,𝐤)`$. The radial wave function of the $`q\overline{q}`$ Fock state of the pion is related to the $`\pi q\overline{q}`$ vertex function as

$$\psi _\pi (z,𝐤)=\frac{N_c}{4\pi ^3z(1z)}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\pi (M^2)}{(M^2m_\pi ^2)}$$
(46)
and is normalized to the $`\pi \mu \nu `$ decay constant $`F_\pi =131`$ MeV through

$$F_\pi =d^2𝐤𝑑zm_f\psi _\pi (z,𝐤)=F_\pi _0^1𝑑z\varphi _\pi (z),$$
(47)
where $`\varphi _\pi (z)`$ is the pion distribution amplitude . Finally, our normalization of helicity amplitudes is such, that the differential cross section of forward dijet production equals

$$\frac{d\sigma _D}{dzd𝐤^2d𝚫^2}|_{𝚫=0}=\frac{\pi ^3}{24}\left\{|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2+|𝚽_1|^2\right\}.$$
(48)
We turn to the discussion of the asymptotics for large jet momenta $`𝐤`$. The first term in eq.(45) comes from the Landau et al. pion splitting mechanism of fig. 5a, whereas the second one is the contribution from the Pomeron splitting of fig. 5b. Because $`\psi _\pi f`$ is a convolution of nonoscillating functions, it is necessarily a broader function than $`\psi _\pi (z,𝐤)`$ and thus will take over if only $`𝐤`$ is large enough. For the quantitative estimate, we remind the reader, that for $`x10^2`$ relevant to the kinematics of E791, the large–$`𝐤`$ behavior of $`f(𝐤)`$ is well described by the inverse power law $`f(𝐤)k^{2\delta }`$ with an exponent $`\delta 2.15`$ . Clearly, $`f(𝐤)`$ decreases much slower than $`\psi (z,𝐤)`$, and hence the asymptotics of the convolution integral is controlled by the asymptotics of $`f(𝐤)`$:

$$d^2𝜿m_f\psi _\pi (z,𝜿)f(𝐤𝜿)f(𝐤)d^2𝜿m_f\psi _\pi (z,𝜿)=f(𝐤)\varphi _\pi (z)F_\pi ,$$
(49)
which shows that in this regime the dijet momentum comes entirely from the momentum of gluons in the Pomeron. Furthermore, in the same regime diffraction into dijets probes the pion distribution amplitude $`\varphi _\pi (z)`$.

.

Now we notice that in the color dipole representation

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_0(z,𝐤)=d^2𝐫e^{i\mathrm{𝐤𝐫}}\sigma (𝐫)m_f\mathrm{\Psi }_\pi (z,𝐫),$$
(50)
and the nuclear amplitude is readily obtained  by substituting in eq.(50)

$$\sigma (𝐫)\sigma _A(𝐫)=2d^2𝐛\left\{1\mathrm{exp}[\frac{1}{2}\sigma (𝐫)T_A(𝐛)]\right\}$$
(51)
Typical nuclear double scattering diagrams of figs. 5c-5e can conveniently be classified as nuclear shadowing of the pion splitting (fig. 5c), nuclear shadowing of single Pomeron splitting (fig. 5d) and double Pomeron splitting (fig. 5e) contributions. The $`j`$ Pomeron splitting is due to diagrams, in which $`j`$ of the Pomerons exchanged between the color dipole and the nucleus couple with one gluon to the quark and with one gluon to the antiquark and involve the $`j`$-fold convolutions of the unintegrated gluon distribution

$$f^{(j)}(𝜿)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{j}{}}d^2𝜿_if(𝜿_i)\delta (𝜿\underset{i=1}{\overset{j}{}}𝜿_i).$$
(52)
Now we can invoke the NSS representation for the nuclear attenuation factor

$`\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma (𝐬)T(𝐛)\right]=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left[\nu _A(𝐛)\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\nu _A(𝐛){\displaystyle d^2𝜿f(𝜿)\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿𝐬)}\right]`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left[\nu _A(𝐛)\right]{\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\nu _A^j(𝐛)}{j!}}{\displaystyle d^2𝜿f^{(j)}(𝜿)\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿𝐬)}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2𝜿\mathrm{\Phi }(\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿)\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿𝐬)}`$ (53)
where

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿)=\mathrm{exp}(\nu _A(𝐛))f^{(0)}(𝜿)+\varphi _{WW}(𝐛,𝜿),`$ (54)
$`\nu _A(𝐛)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha _S(r)\sigma _0T(𝐛)`$ (55)
and it is understood that

$`f^{(0)}(𝜿)=\delta (𝜿).`$ (56)
Then the multiple-Pomeron splitting expansion for nuclear diffractive amplitude takes the form

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_0^{(A)}(z,𝐤,𝚫)=2m_f{\displaystyle }d^2𝐛e^{i𝐛𝚫}\{\mathrm{\Psi }_\pi (z,𝐤)[1\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{eff}(𝐤^2)}{2}}T_A(𝐛))]`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{j1}{}}{\displaystyle }d^2𝜿\mathrm{\Psi }_\pi (z,𝜿)\varphi _{WW}(𝐤𝜿)\}.`$ (57)
A comparison with (45) suggests that $`\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)`$ can be identified with the unintegrated nuclear Weizsäcker-Williams glue per unit area in the impact parameter plane . In (54) we kept an explicit dependence on the optical thickness of the nucleus.

## 6 Nuclear dilution and broadening of the unintegrated Weizsäcker-Williams glue of nuclei

On the one hand, according to  the multiple convolutions $`f^{(j)}(𝜿)`$ have a meaning of the collective unintegrated gluon structure function of $`j`$ nucleons at the same impact parameter the Weizsäcker-Williams gluon fields of which overlap spatially in the Lorentz contracted nucleus. On the other hand, these convolutions of can also be viewed as a random walk in which $`f(𝜿)`$ describes the single walk distribution. To the lowest order in pQCD, the large $`𝜿^2`$ behavior is

$$f(𝜿)\frac{\alpha _S(𝜿^2)}{(𝜿^2)^2}$$
(58)
The QCD evolution effects enhance $`f(𝜿)`$ at large $`𝜿^2`$, the smaller is $`x`$ the stronger is an enhancement. Because $`f(𝜿)`$ decreases very slowly, we encounter a manifestly non-Gaussian random walk. For instance, as was argued in , a $`j`$-fold walk to large $`𝜿^2`$ is realized by one large walk, $`𝜿_1^2𝜿^2`$, accompanied by $`(j1)`$ small walks. We simply cite here the main result

$$f^{(j)}(𝜿)=jf(𝜿)\left[1+\frac{4\pi ^2(j1)\gamma ^2}{N_c\sigma _0𝜿^2}G(𝜿^2)\right]$$
(59)
where $`G(𝜿^2)`$ is the conventional integrated gluon structure function and $`\gamma `$ is an exponent of the large-$`𝜿^2`$ asymptotics of the differential glue in the proton,

$$f(𝜿)\frac{1}{(𝜿^2)^\gamma }$$
(60)
Then the hard tail of unintegrated nuclear glue per bound nucleon can be calculated parameter free:

$`f_{WW}(𝜿)=f(𝜿)\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{2C_A\pi ^2\gamma ^2\alpha _S(r)T(𝐛)}{C_FN_c𝜿^2}}G(𝜿^2)\right]`$ (61)
In the hard regime the differential nuclear glue is not shadowed, furthermore, because of the manifestly positive-valued and model-independent nuclear higher twist correction it exhibits nuclear antishadowing property .

Now we present the arguments in favor of the soft-$`𝜿`$ behavior

$$f^{(j)}(𝜿)\frac{1}{\pi }\frac{Q_j^2}{(𝜿^2+Q_j^2)^2}=\frac{1}{Q_j^2}\chi (\frac{𝜿^2}{Q_j^2})$$
(62)
with the width

$$Q_j^2jQ_0^2$$
(63)
In an evolution of $`f^{(j)}(𝜿)`$ with $`j`$ at moderate $`𝜿^2`$,

$$f^{(j+1)}(𝜿^2)=d^2𝐤f(𝐤^2)f^{(j)}((𝜿𝐤)^2)$$
(64)
the function $`f(𝐤^2)`$ is a steep one compared to a smooth and broad $`f^{(j)}((𝜿𝐤)^2)`$, so that we can expand

$`f^{(j)}((𝜿𝐤)^2)=`$
$`f^{(j)}(𝜿^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{df^{(j)}(𝜿^2)}{d𝜿^2}}[𝐤^22𝜿𝐤]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2f^{(j)}(𝜿^2)}{(d𝜿^2)^2}}4(𝜿𝐤)^2`$
$``$ $`f^{(j)}(𝜿^2)+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{df^{(j)}(𝜿^2)}{d𝜿^2}}+𝜿^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^2f^{(j)}(𝜿^2)}{(d𝜿^2)^2}}\right]𝐤^2`$
$`=`$ $`f^{(j)}(𝜿^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d𝜿^2}}\left[𝜿^2{\displaystyle \frac{df^{(j)}(𝜿^2)}{d𝜿^2}}\right]𝐤^2`$ (65)
Here $``$ indicates an azimuthal averaging. Our expansion was valid for $`𝐤^2\text{ }<Q_j^2`$, hence

$`f^{(j+1)}(𝜿^2)=f^{(j)}(𝜿^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d𝜿^2}}\left[𝜿^2{\displaystyle \frac{df^{(j)}(𝜿^2)}{d𝜿^2}}\right]{\displaystyle ^{Q_j^2}}d^2𝐤f(𝐤^2)𝐤^2`$
$`=f^{(j)}(𝜿^2)+g(j){\displaystyle \frac{d}{d𝜿^2}}\left[𝜿^2{\displaystyle \frac{df^{(j)}(𝜿^2)}{d𝜿^2}}\right]`$ (66)
where

$$g(j)=^{Q_j^2}d^2\mathrm{𝐤𝐤}^2f(𝐤^2)=\frac{4\pi ^2}{N_c\sigma _0}G(Q_j^2)$$
(67)
is a smooth function of $`j`$.

For small $`𝜿^2`$ the recurrence relation amounts to

$`{\displaystyle \frac{Q_{j+1}^2Q_j^2}{Q_{j+1}^2Q_j^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q_j^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{\chi ^{}(0)}{\chi (0)}}g(j)`$ (68)
which, for large $`j`$, reduces to a differential equation

$$\frac{dQ_j^2}{dj}=\frac{\chi ^{}(0)}{\chi (0)}g(j)$$
(69)
with the solution

$$Q_j^2=\frac{\chi ^{}(0))}{\chi (0)}^j𝑑j^{}g(j^{})jg(j)\frac{\chi ^{}(0)}{\chi (0)}jQ_0^2.$$
(70)
The expansion (65) holds up to the terms $`𝜿^2`$ and its differentiation at $`𝜿^2=0`$ gives a similar constraint on the $`j`$-dependence of $`Q_j^2`$. The soft parameters $`Q_0^2`$ and $`\sigma _0`$ are related to the integrated glue of the proton in the soft region,

$$Q_0^2\sigma _0\frac{2\pi ^2}{N_c}G_{soft},G_{soft}1.$$
(71)
We conclude by the observation that when extended to $`𝜿^2\text{ }>Q_j^2`$, the parameterization (62), (63) has the behavior $`jQ_0^2/(𝜿^2)^2`$ which nicely matches the $`j`$-dependence of the leading twist term in the hard asymptotics (61).

An approximation (62), (63) is corroborated by the numerical results for the $`j`$-dependence of convolutions calculated for the unintegrated gluon structure function of the proton from ref. , see fig. 6.

For heavy nuclei the dominant contribution to $`\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)`$ comes from $`j\nu _A(𝐛)`$, and the gross features of the WW nuclear glue in the soft region are well reproduced by

$`\varphi _{WW}(𝜿){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{Q_A^2}{(𝜿^2+Q_A^2)^2}},`$ (72)
where the saturation scale $`Q_A^2=\nu _A(𝐛)Q_0^2A^{1/3}.`$

Notice a strong nuclear dilution of soft WW glue,

$$\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)1/Q_A^2A^{1/3}$$
(73)
which must be contrasted to the $`A`$-dependence of hard glue, cf. (59), (61),

$$\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)=\nu _A(𝐛)f_{WW}(𝜿)A^{1/3}\times (1+A^{1/3}\times (HT)+\mathrm{}).$$
(74)
Take the platinum target, $`A=192`$. The numerical estimates show that for $`(q\overline{q})`$ color dipoles in the average DIS on this target $`\nu _A4`$ and $`Q_{3A}^20.8\mathrm{GeV}^2.`$ For the $`q\overline{q}g`$ Fock states of the photon, which behave predominantly like the dipole made of the two octet color charges, the saturation scale is larger by the factor $`C_A/C_F=9/4`$,

$$Q_{8A}^2=\frac{C_A}{C_F}Q_{3A}^2.$$
(75)
The numerical estimates for the the average DIS on the Pt target give $`Q_{8A}^22.2`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>.

## 7 Back to the hard diffraction of pions: the interpretation of the E791 data

The detailed numerical analysis for the kinematics of the E791 experiment is found in . In fig. 7 we only show the numerical result of the $`𝐤`$ dependence of the dijet cross section with the (unnormalized) data from E791. We note in passing that the region of jet momenta $`k\text{ }<1.5`$ GeV is contaminated by diffractive excitation of heavy mesons $`a_1,\pi ^{}`$, etc, and in this region the use of plane wave parton model formulas is not warranted. Our calculations for smaller $`k`$ only serve to give an idea on how the pion splitting dominates at small $`k`$ and how the pomeron splitting mechanism takes over beyond the dip in $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2`$ and $`𝚽_1^2`$. The latter is a higher twist term. In the pomeron splitting dominance region of $`k>1.5`$ GeV we find good agreement with the experimentally observed $`𝐤`$-dependence. We wish to warn the reader however, that for the kinematics of E791 the dijet cross section receives a huge contribution from the antishadowing nuclear higher twist correction .

The effect of antishadowing nuclear higher twist correction is especially obvious in fig. 8, where we show the exponent $`\alpha `$ of the $`A`$-dependence $`\sigma A^\alpha `$. In the impulse approximation

$$\sigma \frac{A^2}{R_A^2}A^{4/3}$$
(76)
If the exponent $`\alpha `$ is defined from a comparison of the cross sections for the carbon and platinum targets, then the impulse approximation gives $`\alpha 1.44`$. For hard dijets our antishadowing effect predicts a substantial excess of $`\alpha `$ over the impulse approximation value.

The NSS dominance of the pomeron-splitting contribution for hard dijets has fully been confirmed by the collinear factorization NLO order analysis of Chernyak et al.  and Braun et al. . The NLO correction to the NSS amplitude is found to be proportional to the asymptotic distribution amplitude and numerically quite substantial, so that the experimental data by E791  can not distinguish between the asymptotic and double-humped distribution amplitudes. According to NSS  realistic model distributions do not differ much from the asymptotic one, though. To our view, the only caveat in the interpretation of the NLO results is that the issue of partial reabsorption of these corrections into the evolution/renormalization of the pion distribution amplitude still needs further scrutiny. Anyway, there emerges a consistent pattern of diffraction of pions into hard dijets and in view of these findings the claims by Frankfurt et al.  that the diffractive amplitude is proportional to the integrated gluon structure function of the target must be regarded null and void. (Hopefully, some day the E791 collaboration shall report on the interpretation of their results within the correct formalism.)

## 8 Nuclear partons in the saturation regime

Here we apply the results of sections 4 and 5 to the calculation of FS single-parton (jet) spectrum for nuclear targets. On the one hand, making use of the NSS representation, the total nuclear photoabsorption cross section (51) can be cast in the form

$$\sigma _A=d^2𝐛𝑑z\frac{d^2𝐩}{(2\pi )^2}d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)\left|\gamma ^{}|𝐩\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿\right|^2$$
(77)
which has a profound semblance to (8) and one is tempted to take the differential form of (77) as a definition of the IS sea quark density in a nucleus (hereafter we consider one flavour and take $`e_f^2`$ the factor out of the photon’s wave function and cross sections):

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\overline{q}_{IS}}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha _{em}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _A}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩}}.`$ (78)
In terms of the WW nuclear glue, all intranuclear multiple-scattering diagrams of fig. 3g sum up to precisely the same four diagrams fig. 3a-3d as in DIS off free nucleons. Furthermore, one can argue that the small-$`x`$ evolution of the so-defined IS nuclear sea is similar to that for a free nucleon sea. Although $`𝐩`$ emerges here just as a formal Fourier parameter, we shall demonstrate that it can be identified with the momentum of the observed final state antiquark.

On the other hand, making use of the NSS representation, after some algebra one finds

$`\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma (𝐫𝐫^{})T(𝐛)]\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})]T(𝐛)]=`$
$`{\displaystyle d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)\{(\mathrm{exp}[i𝜿(𝐫𝐫^{})]1)+(1\mathrm{exp}[i𝜿𝐫])+(1\mathrm{exp}[i𝜿𝐫^{}])\}}`$
$`{\displaystyle d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)(1\mathrm{exp}[i𝜿𝐫])d^2𝜿^{}\varphi _{WW}(𝜿^{})(1\mathrm{exp}[i𝜿^{}𝐫^{}])}`$ (79)
so that the single-quark spectrum (43 takes the form

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{in}}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩dz}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}\left\{{\displaystyle }d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)\right|\gamma ^{}|𝐩\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿|^2`$ (80)
$`\left|{\displaystyle }d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)(\gamma ^{}|𝐩\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿)|^2\right\}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _D}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩dz}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}\left|{\displaystyle d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)(\gamma ^{}|𝐩\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿)}\right|^2.`$ (81)
Putting the inelastic and diffractive components of the FS quark spectrum together, we evidently find the FS parton density which exactly coincides with the IS parton density (78) such that $`𝐩`$ is indeed the transverse momentum of the FS sea quark. The interpretation of this finding is not trivial, though.

Consider first the domain of $`𝐩^2\text{ }<Q^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$ such that the nucleus is opaque for all color dipoles in the photon. Hereafter we assume that the saturation scale $`Q_A^2`$ is so large that $`𝐩^2,Q^2`$ are in the pQCD domain and neglect the quark masses. In this regime the nuclear counterparts of the crossing diagrams of figs. 3b,3d,3f can be neglected. Then, in the classification of , diffraction will be dominated by the contribution from the Landau-Pomeranchuk diagram of fig. 3e with the result

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\overline{q}_{FS}}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩}}|_D`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha _{em}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _D}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩}}`$ (82)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha _{em}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑z\left|d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)\right|^2\left|\gamma ^{}|𝐩\right|^2}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N_c}{4\pi ^4}}.`$
Up to now we specified neither the wave function of the photon nor the spin nor the color representation of charged partons, only the last result in (82) makes an explicit use of the conventional spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ partons. Remarkably, diffractive DIS measures the momentum distribution of quarks and antiquarks in the $`q\overline{q}`$ Fock state of the photon. We emphasize that this result, typical of the Landau-Pomeranchuk mechanism, is a completely generic one and would hold for any beam particle such that its coupling to hard colored partons is weak. In contrast to diffraction off free nucleons , diffraction off opaque nuclei is dominated by the anti-collinear splitting of hard gluons into soft sea quarks, $`𝜿^2𝐩^2`$. Precisely for this reason one finds the saturated FS quark density, because the nuclear dilution of the WW glue is compensated for by the expanding plateau. The result (82) has no counterpart in DIS off free nucleons because diffractive DIS off free nucleons is negligibly small even at HERA, $`\eta _D\text{ }<`$ 6-10 % .

The related analysis of the FS quark density for truly inelastic DIS in the same domain of $`𝐩^2\text{ }<Q^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$ gives

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\overline{q}_{FS}}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩}}|_{in}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha _{em}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑zd^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)\left|\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿\right|^2}`$ (83)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{8\pi ^2\alpha _{em}}}\varphi _{WW}(0){\displaystyle ^{Q^2}}d^2𝜿{\displaystyle 𝑑z\left|\gamma ^{}|𝜿\right|^2}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N_c}{4\pi ^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{Q_A^2}}\theta (Q_A^2𝐩^2).`$
It describes final states with color excitation of a nucleus, but as a function of the photon wave function and nuclear WW gluon distribution it is completely different from (8) for free nucleons. The $`\theta `$-function simply indicates that the plateau for inelastic DIS extends up to $`𝐩^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$. For $`Q^2Q_A^2`$ the inelastic plateau contributes little to the transverse momentum distribution of soft quarks, $`𝐩^2\text{ }<Q^2`$, but the inelastic plateau extends way beyond $`Q^2`$ and its integral contribution to the spectrum of FS quarks is exactly equal to that from diffractive DIS. Such a two-plateau structure of the FS quark spectrum is a new finding and has not been considered before.

Now notice, that in the opacity regime the diffractive FS parton density coincides with the contribution $`|\gamma ^{}|𝐩|^2`$ to the IS sea parton density from the spectator diagram of fig. 3a, whereas the FS parton density for truly inelastic DIS coincides with the contribution to IS sea partons from the diagram of fig. 3c. In this regime the contribution from the crossing diagrams of figs. 3b,d is negigibly small.

Our results (82) and (83), especially nuclear broadening and unusually strong $`Q^2`$ dependence of the FS/IS parton density from truly inelastic DIS, demonstrate clearly a distinction between diffractive and inelastic DIS. Our considerations can readily be extended to the spectrum of soft quarks, $`𝐩^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$, in hard photons, $`Q^2\text{ }>Q_A^2`$. In this case the result (82) for diffractive DIS is retained, whereas in the numerator of the result (83) for truly inelastic DIS one must substitute $`Q^2Q_A^2`$, so that in this case $`dq_{FS}|_Ddq_{FS}|_{in}`$ and $`dq_{IS}2dq_{FS}|_D`$. The evolution of soft nuclear sea, $`𝐩^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$, is entirely driven by an anti-collinear splitting of the NSS-defined WW nuclear glue into the sea partons.

The early discussion of the FS quark density in the saturation regime is due to Mueller . Mueller focused on $`Q^2Q_A^2`$ and discussed neither a distinction between diffractive and truly inelastic DIS nor a $`Q^2`$ dependence and broadening (83) for truly inelastic DIS at $`Q^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$.

A comparison with the IS nuclear parton densities which evolve from the NSS-defined WW nuclear glue shows an exact equality of the FS and IS parton densities. The plateau-like saturated nuclear quark density is suggestive of the Fermi statistics, but our principal point that for any projectile which interacts weakly with colored partons the saturated density measures the momentum distribution in the $`q\overline{q},gg,\mathrm{}`$ Fock state of the projectile disproves the Fermi-statistics interpretation. The spin and color multiplet of colored partons the photon couples to is completely irrelevant, what only counts is an opacity of heavy nuclei. The anti-collinear splitting of WW nuclear glue into soft sea partons is a noteworthy feature of the both diffractive DIS and IS sea parton distributions. The emergence of a saturated density of IS sea partons from the nuclear-diluted WW glue is due to the nuclear broadening of the plateau (83). Because the predominance of diffraction is a very special feature of DIS , one must be careful with applying the IS parton densities to, for instance, nuclear collisions, in which diffraction wouldn’t be of any significance.

## 9 Signals of saturation in exclusive diffractive DIS

A flat $`𝐩^2`$ distribution of forward $`q,\overline{q}`$ jets in truly inelastic DIS in the saturation regime, see eq. (83), must be contrasted to the standard DGLAP spectrum,

$$\frac{d\overline{q}}{d^2𝐩}=\frac{2\alpha _S(𝐩^2)G(𝐩^2)}{3\pi 𝐩^2},$$
(84)
for the free nucleon target.

In the diffractive DIS the signal of saturation is much more dramatic: a flat $`𝐩^2`$ distribution of forward $`q,\overline{q}`$ jets in diffractive DIS in the saturation regime, see eq. (82), must be contrasted to the spectrum

$$\frac{d\sigma _D}{d^2𝐩}\frac{G^2(𝐩^2)}{(𝐩^2)^2}$$
(85)
in diffractive DIS off the free nucleon target . Recall that it is $`𝐩^2`$ which serves as a hard scale for diffractive dijets unless $`𝐩^2`$ is so large that the pomeron splitting mechanism takes over .

In the general case one must compare the saturation scale $`Q_A`$ to the relevant hard scale for the specific diffractive process. For instance, in the exclusive diffractive DIS, i.e., the vector meson production, the hard scale for the proton target equals

$$\overline{Q}^2\frac{1}{4}(Q^2+m_V^2)$$
(86)
and the transverse cross section has been predicted to behave as

$$\sigma _T\left[\frac{G(x,\overline{Q}^2)}{\overline{Q}^4}\right]^2$$
(87)
At $`\overline{Q}^2>Q_A^2`$ the same would hold for nuclei too, but in the opposite case of $`\overline{Q}^2<Q_A^2`$ the $`\overline{Q}^2`$-dependence is predicted to change to

$$\sigma _T\left[\frac{G(x,\overline{Q}^2)}{Q_A^2\overline{Q}^2}\right]^2$$
(88)
The numerical results shown in Fig. 10 give an idea on how the $`(Q^2+m_V^2)`$ dependence of exclusive diffraction into the vector mesons changes from the free nucleon to nuclear target with the incresaing saturation scale.

As shown in , there is a duality correspondence between the $`(Q^2+m_V^2)`$ dependence of exclusive production of vector mesons and the mass spectrum of diffractive DIS into small-mass continuum states, i.e, at large values, $`\beta 1`$, of the diffractive Bjorken variable

$$\beta =\frac{Q^2}{M^2+Q^2}.$$
(89)
Specifically, for diffractive DIS off free nucleons the transverse diffractive structure function has the large-$`\beta `$ behavior

$$F_D(1\beta )^2,$$
(90)
whereas in diffractive DIS off nuclei in the saturation regime we predict

$$F_D(1\beta ).$$
(91)
## 10 Jet-jet (de)correlation in DIS off nuclear targets: hard jets

The diagonalization of the $`2\times 2`$ matrix $`\sigma _4`$ derived in section 3 is a straightforward task, so that technically eqs. (14) and (26)-(30) allow a direct calculation of the jet-jet inclusive cross section in terms of the color dipole cross section $`\sigma (𝐫)`$. The practical evaluation of the 6-fold Fourier transform is not a trivial task, though, and anlytical evaluations are called upon. Here we focus on production of forward hard jets with the momenta $`𝐩_\pm ^2\text{ }>Q_A^2`$, where $`Q_A`$ is the saturation scale. Such a hard jets are produced from interactions with the target nucleus of small color dipoles in the incident photon such that diffractive nuclear attenuation effects can be neglected. In this case useful and intuitively transparent analytic results for the jet-jet (de)correlation can be obtained.

Before proceeding to this approximation, it is convenient to introduce the average impact parameter

$$𝐛=\frac{1}{4}(𝐛_++𝐛_+^{}+𝐛_{}+𝐛_{}^{}),$$
(92)
(one should nor confuse $`𝐛`$ with the center of gravity of color dipoles where the impact parameters $`𝐛_\pm `$ and $`𝐛_\pm ^{}`$ must be weighted with $`z_\pm `$) and

$$𝐬=𝐛_+𝐛_+^{},$$
(93)
for the variable conjugate to the decorrelation momentum, in terms of which

$`𝐛_+𝐛_{}^{}=𝐬+𝐫^{},`$ (94)
$`𝐛_{}𝐛_+^{}=𝐬𝐫,`$ (95)
$`𝐛_{}𝐛_{}^{}=𝐬𝐫+𝐫^{}.`$ (96)
We also reproduce here the matrix elements of $`\sigma _4`$ in this basis:

$`11|\sigma _4|11=\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})`$ (97)
$`11|\sigma _4|88={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N_c^21}}}\left[\sigma (𝐬)\sigma (𝐬+𝐫^{})\sigma (𝐬𝐫)+\sigma (𝐬𝐫+𝐫^{})\right]`$ (98)
$`88|\sigma _4|88`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N_c^22}{N_c^21}}[[\sigma (𝐬)+\sigma (𝐬𝐫+𝐫^{})]`$ (99)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{N_c^21}}[\sigma (𝐬+𝐫^{})+\sigma (𝐬𝐫)]`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c^21}}[\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})]`$
Hard jets correspond to $`|𝐫|,|𝐫^{}||𝐬|`$. Then the two eigenvalues are

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2=11|\sigma _4|110`$ (100)
and

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1=88|\sigma _4|882{\displaystyle \frac{N_c^2}{N_c^21}}\sigma (𝐬)=2\lambda _c\sigma (𝐬)`$ (101)
where $`\lambda _c=N_c^2/(N_c^21)`$. Because of (100) only the second term, $`11|\sigma _4|88`$, must be kept in the Sylvester expansion (31). It is convenient to define the nuclear distortion factor

$`D_A(𝐬,𝐫,𝐫^{})={\displaystyle \frac{2}{(\mathrm{\Sigma }_2\mathrm{\Sigma }_1)T(𝐛)}}\left\{\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_1T(𝐛)\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_2T(𝐛)\right]\right\}`$ (102)
such that to the leading order in nuclear thickness, i.e., in the impulse approximation, $`D_A(𝐬,𝐫,𝐫^{})=1`$. Then, the impulse approximation cross section per unit area in the impact parameter plane takes the form (we expose the relevant steps in some detail)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{IA}}{d^2𝐛dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝐩_{}}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle d^2𝐬d^2𝐫d^2𝐫^{}}`$
$`\times \mathrm{exp}[i(𝐩_++𝐩_{})𝐬+i𝐩_{}(𝐫^{}𝐫)]\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐫^{})\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫)`$
$`\times T(𝐛)\sqrt{N_c^21}11|\sigma _4|88D_A(𝐬,𝐫,𝐫^{},𝐛)`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(2\pi )^4}}T(𝐛){\displaystyle d^2𝐬d^2𝐫d^2𝐫^{}\mathrm{exp}[i(𝐩_++𝐩_{})𝐬+𝐩_{}(𝐫^{}𝐫)]}`$
$`\times \mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐫^{})\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫)\left[\sigma (𝐬)\sigma (𝐬+𝐫^{})\sigma (𝐬𝐫)+\sigma (𝐬𝐫+𝐫^{})\right]`$ (103)
Here we employ the integral representation (4):

$`\left[\sigma (𝐬)\sigma (𝐬+𝐫^{})\sigma (𝐬𝐫)+\sigma (𝐬𝐫+𝐫^{})\right]`$
$`=\alpha _S\sigma _0{\displaystyle d^2𝚫f(𝚫)\mathrm{exp}[i𝚫𝐬]\left\{1\mathrm{exp}[i𝚫𝐫^{}]\right\}\left\{1\mathrm{exp}[i𝚫𝐫]\right\}},`$ (104)
which leads to the Impulse Approximation result

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{IA}}{d^2𝐛dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝐩_{}}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(2\pi )^4}}\alpha _S\sigma _0T(𝐛){\displaystyle d^2𝐬d^2𝐫d^2𝐫^{}d^2𝚫f(𝚫)}`$
$`\times \mathrm{exp}[i(𝚫𝐩_+𝐩_{})𝐬]\mathrm{exp}[i𝐩_{}(𝐫^{}𝐫)]`$
$`\times \mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐫^{})\left\{1\mathrm{exp}[i𝚫𝐫^{}]\right\}\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫)\left\{1\mathrm{exp}[i𝚫𝐫]\right\}.`$ (105)
The $`d^2𝐬`$ integration entailes $`𝚫=𝐩_+𝐩_{}`$, the remaining Fourier transforms are straightforward and give precisely (12) times $`T(𝐛)`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{IA}}{d^2𝐛dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝚫}}=T(𝐛){\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _N}{d^2𝐛dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝚫}}`$ (106)
The nuclear distortion factor takes a simple form

$`D_A(𝐬,𝐛)={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Sigma }_1T(𝐛)\right]1}{\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Sigma }_1T(𝐛)]}}={\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\beta \mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta \mathrm{\Sigma }_1T(𝐛)\right]`$
$`={\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\beta {\displaystyle d^2𝜿\mathrm{\Phi }(2\beta \lambda _c\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿)\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿𝐬)}`$ (107)
The introduction of this distortion factor into (105) is straightforward and gives our central result for the hard jet-jet inclusive cross section:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{in}}{d^2𝐛dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝚫}}=T(𝐛){\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\beta {\displaystyle d^2𝜿\mathrm{\Phi }(2\beta \lambda _c\nu _A(𝐛),𝚫𝜿)\frac{d\sigma _N}{dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝜿}}.`$ (108)
It has a probabilistic form of a convolution of the differential cross section on a free nucleon target with $`\mathrm{\Phi }(2\beta \lambda _c\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿)`$. Here $`\beta `$ has a meaning of the fraction of the nuclear thickness which the $`(q\overline{q})`$ pair propagates in the color octet state.

In the practical calculations one can use an explicit expansion

$`{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\beta \mathrm{\Phi }(2\beta \lambda _c\nu _A(𝐛),𝚫)={\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{j!}}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma (j+1,2\beta \lambda _c\nu _A(𝐛))}{2\beta \lambda _c\nu _A(𝐛)}}f^{(j)}(𝚫),`$ (109)
where $`\gamma (j,x)`$ is an incomplete Gamma-function. For heavy nuclei the dominant contribution comes from $`j\nu _A`$. Neglecting the small departure of $`\lambda _c`$ from unity, for a heavy nucleus we can approximate

$`{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\beta \mathrm{\Phi }(2\beta \lambda _c\nu _A(𝐛),𝚫)\mathrm{\Phi }(\lambda _c\nu _A(𝐛),𝚫)`$
$`\mathrm{\Phi }(\nu _A(𝐛),𝚫){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{Q_A^2}{(𝚫^2+Q_A^2)^2}}`$ (110)
and evaluate the gross features of a jet-jet decorrelation analytically. First, notice that $`f(𝜿)`$ which enters the free nucleon cross section (12) is a steep function of $`𝜿`$ compared to a broad distribution (110). Then,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{in}}{d^2𝐛dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝚫}}T(𝐛){\displaystyle \frac{Q_A^2}{\pi (𝚫^2+Q_A^2)^2}}{\displaystyle d^2𝜿\frac{d\sigma _N}{dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝜿}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}T(𝐛)e_f^2\alpha _{em}\alpha _S(𝐩_+^2)[z^2+(1z)^2]G(𝚫^2+Q_A^2)`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{Q_A^2}{\pi (𝚫^2+Q_A^2)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^4+(𝐩_+^2)^2}{(\epsilon ^2+𝐩_+^2)^4}},`$ (111)
where the integrated gluon structure function of the nucleon enters at the factorization scale $`(𝚫^2+Q_A^2)`$. Neglecting the scaling violations in $`G(𝚫^2+Q_A^2)`$, we can evaluate expectation value $`𝚫_{}^2`$ subject to the condition $`𝚫^2\text{ }<𝐩_+^2`$ as

$$𝚫_{}^2\frac{Q_A^2}{2}\left(\frac{Q_A^2+𝐩_+^2}{𝐩_+^2}\mathrm{log}\frac{Q_A^2+𝐩_+^2}{Q_A^2}1\right)$$
(112)
The differential out-of-plane momentum distribution can be evaluated as

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Delta }_{}}\frac{1}{2}\frac{Q_A^2}{(Q_A^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_{}^2)^{3/2}}$$
(113)
which shows that the probability to observe the away jet at $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}0`$ disappears $`1/Q_A1/\sqrt{\nu _A}`$.

The probabilistic character of our result (108) can be understood as follows. Hard jets originate from small color dipoles. Their interaction with gluons of the target nucleus is suppressed by screening of color charges of the quark and antiquark in the color-singlet $`q\overline{q}`$ state which is manifest from the small cross section for a free nucleon target, see eqs. (12), (13). The first inelastic interaction inside a nucleus converts the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair into the color-octet state. The color charges of the quark and antiquark are no longer screened and rescatterings of the quark and antiquark in the color field of intranuclear nucleons are uncorrelated. Consequently, the broadening of the momentum distribution with nuclear thickness follows the probabilistic picture.

## 11 Disappearance of jet-jet correlation in DIS off nuclear targets: minijets below the saturation scale

In the above discusion of the single particle spectrum we discovered that the sea quarks evolve via the anticollinear, anti-DGLAP splitting of gluons into sea, when the transverse momentum of the parent gluons is larger than the momentum of the sea quarks , which suggests strongly a complete azimuthal decorrelation of forward jets with the transverse momenta below the saturation scale, $`𝐩_\pm ^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$. Our numerical results reported in section 6 suggest that for the realistic nuclei $`Q_A^2`$ does not exceed several GeV<sup>2</sup>, hence this regime is a somewhat academic one. Still, let us assume that $`Q_A`$ is so large that jets with $`𝐩_\pm ^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$ are measurable.

Upon the slight generalization of (107) the distortion factor admits a representation

$`D_A(𝐬,𝐫,𝐫^{},𝐛)={\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\beta \mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\beta \mathrm{\Sigma }_1+(1\beta )\mathrm{\Sigma }_2]T(𝐛)\right\}.`$ (114)
It is still too complex if one is after the exact eigenvalues $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{1,2}`$, however, it simplifies greatly if one invokes the large-$`N_c`$ approximation, in which case

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_2=11|\sigma _4|11=\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})$$
(115)
and

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1=\sigma (𝐬)+\sigma (𝐬+𝐫^{}𝐫).`$ (116)
Because in the large-$`N_c`$ approximation $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2=11|\sigma _4|11=\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})`$, the first two terms in the Sylvester expansion (31) do vanish and only the last term will contribute to the jet-jet inclusive cross section. In the large-$`N_c`$ approximation there is only one transition from the color-singlet to the color-octet state, once in the color octet state the $`q\overline{q}`$ only oscillates in the color space. Then the different exponentials in the resulting distortion factor

$`D_A(𝐬,𝐫,𝐫^{},𝐛)={\displaystyle _0^1}d`$ $`\beta \mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta [\sigma (𝐬)+\sigma (𝐬+𝐫^{}𝐫)]T(𝐛)\right\}`$ (117)
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1\beta )[\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})]T(𝐛)\right\}`$
admit a simple interpretation: The last two exponential factors describe the intranuclear distortion of the incoming color-singlet $`(q\overline{q})`$ dipole state, whereas the former two factors describe the distortion of the outgoing color-octet dipole states.

A straightforward generalization of (107) gives

$`D_A(𝐬,𝐫,𝐫^{},𝐛)={\displaystyle _0^1}d`$ $`\beta {\displaystyle d^2𝜿_1\mathrm{\Phi }((1\beta )\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿_1)\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿_1𝐫)}`$ (118)
$`\times {\displaystyle }d^2𝜿_2\mathrm{\Phi }((1\beta )\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿_2)\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿_2𝐫)`$
$`\times {\displaystyle }d^2𝜿_3\mathrm{\Phi }(\beta \nu _A(𝐛),𝜿_3)\mathrm{exp}[i𝜿_3(𝐬+𝐫^{}𝐫)]`$
$`\times {\displaystyle }d^2𝜿_4\mathrm{\Phi }(\beta \nu _A(𝐛),𝜿_4)\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿_4𝐫)`$
and the jet-jet inclusive cross section takes the form

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{in}}{d^2𝐛dzd𝐩_{}d𝚫}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(2\pi )^2}}\alpha _S\sigma _0T(𝐛){\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\beta {\displaystyle d^2𝜿_1d^2𝜿_2d^2𝜿_3d^2𝜿f(𝜿)}`$ (119)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }((1\beta )\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿_1)\mathrm{\Phi }((1\beta )\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿_2)`$
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\beta \nu _A(𝐛),𝜿_3)\mathrm{\Phi }(\beta \nu _A(𝐛),𝚫𝜿_3𝜿)`$
$`\times `$ $`\left\{\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_2+𝜿_3)\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_2+𝜿_3+𝜿)\right\}^{}`$
$`\times `$ $`\left\{\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_1+𝜿_3)\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_1+𝜿_3+𝜿)\right\}`$
It is uniquely calculable in terms of the NSS-defined WW glue of the nucleus.

Now consider the limiting case of minijets with the transverse momentum below the saturation scale, $`|𝐩_{}|,|𝚫|\text{ }<Q_A`$. Notice, that $`|𝜿_i|Q_A`$, so that one can neglect $`𝐩_{}`$ in the photon’s wave functions and the decorrelation momentum $`𝚫`$ in the argument of $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\beta \nu _A(𝐛),𝚫𝜿_3𝜿)`$. The gross features of the product of the photon’s wave functions which enters the integrand of (119), after the averaging over $`𝜿_1`$ and $`𝜿_2`$ can be well approximated by

$`\{\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_2+𝜿_3)\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_2+𝜿_3+𝜿)\}^{}`$
$`\{\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_1+𝜿_3)\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_1+𝜿_3+𝜿)\}_{𝜿_{1,2}}`$
$`|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝜿_3)\mathrm{\Psi }(𝜿_3+𝜿)|^2`$ (120)
The principal point is that the minijet-minijet inclusive cross section depends on neither the minijet nor decorrelation momentum, which corroborates the anticipated complete disappearance of the azimuthal decorrelation of jets with the transverse momentum below the saturation scale.

## 12 Summary and conclusions

We formulated the theory of DIS off nuclear targets based on the consistent treatment of propagation of color dipoles in nuclear medium. What is viewed as attenuation in the laboratory frame can be interpreted as a fusion of partons from different nucleons of the ultrarelativistic nucleus. Diffractive attenuation of color single $`q\overline{q}`$ states gives a consistent definition of the WW unintegrated gluon structure function of the nucleus . In these lectures we demonstrated how all other nuclear DIS observables - sea quark structure function and its decomposition into equally important genuine inelastic and diffractive components, exclusive diffraction off nuclei, the jet-jet inclusive cross section, \- are uniquely calculable in terms of the NSS-defined nuclear WW glue. This property can be considered as a new factorization which connects DIS in the regimes of low and high density of partons.

The two-plateau single parton (jet) inclusive cross section with the strong $`Q^2`$ dependence of the plateau for truly inelastic DIS has not been discussed before. A comparison with the initial state nuclear parton densities which evolve from the NSS-defined WW nuclear glue shows an exact equality of the FS and IS parton densities. The plateau-like saturated nuclear quark density is suggestive of the Fermi statistics, but our principal point that for any projectile which interacts weakly with colored partons the saturated density measures the momentum distribution in the $`q\overline{q},gg,\mathrm{}`$ Fock state of the projectile disproves the Fermi-statistics interpretation. The spin and color multiplet of colored partons the photon couples to is completely irrelevant, what only counts is an opacity of heavy nuclei.

The anti-collinear splitting of WW nuclear glue into soft sea partons is a noteworthy feature of the both diffractive DIS and IS sea parton distributions. The collective nuclear WW gluon field exhibits strong nuclear suppression, and the emergence of a saturated density of sea partons from the nuclear-diluted WW glue is due to the nuclear broadening of the plateau. Because the predominance of diffraction is a very special feature of DIS , one must be careful with applying the IS parton densities to, for instance, nuclear collisions, in which diffraction wouldn’t be of any significance. The anti-collinear splitting of WW nuclear glue is a clearcut evidence for inapplicability of the DGLAP evolution to nuclear structure functions unless $`Q^2Q_{8A}^2`$.

Although in our derivation we focused on DIS, all the results for hard single-jet and jet-jet inclusive cross sectinos are fully applicable to production of jets in the beam fragmentation region of meson-nucleus collisions and can readily be extended to nucleon-nucleus collisions. Indeed, as argued in , the final state interaction between the final state quark and antiquark can be neglected and plane-wave approximation becomes applicable as soon as the invariant mass of the dijet exceeds a typical mass scale of prominent meson resonances.

Of particular interest are the results on the azimuthal decorrelation of hard jets, in particular, disappearance of azimuthal jet-jet correlations of minijets with momenta below the saturation scale. For the average DIS on heavy nuclei we estimate $`Q_{8A}^22`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>, but for the central DIS at a small impact parameter the saturation scale can be several times larger. For instance, from perihperal DIS to central DIS on a heavy nucleus like $`Pt`$, $`\nu _{8A}`$ rises form $`\nu _{8A}=1`$ to $`\nu _{8A}13`$, so that according to (113) a probability to find the away jet decreases by the large factor $`3.5`$ from peripheral to central DIS off $`Pt`$ target.

The early experience with application of color dipole formalism to hard hadron-nucleus interactions  suggests that our analysis can be readily generalized to mid-rapidity jets. One only has to choose an appropriate system of dipoles, for instance, the open heavy flavor production can be treated in terms of the intranuclear propagation of the gluon-quark-antiquark system in the overall color-singlet state. For this reason, we expect similar strong decorrelation of mid-rapidity jets in hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. To this end, recently the STAR collaboration reported a disappearance of back-to-back high $`p_{}`$ hadron correlation in central gold-gold collisions at RHIC . Nuclear enhancement of the azimuthal decorrelation of the trigger and away jets discussed in sections 10 and 11 may contribute substantially to the STAR effect. Here we emphasize that we discuss the distortions of the produced jet-jet inclusive spectrum due to interactions with the nucleons of the target, a practical consideration of azimuthal decorrelations in central heavy ion collisions must include rescatterings of parent high-$`p_{}`$ partons on the abundantly produced secondary hadrons.

This work has been partly supported by the INTAS grants 97-30494 & 00-00366 and the DFG grant 436RUS17/89/02.