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# Novel QCD phenomena in pA collisions at LHC

## 1 Physics motivations

The proton-ion collisions at LHC will be qualitatively different from those at fixed target energies 111An extensive discussion of the novel pA physics at LHC was presented in . Here we summarize few key points of this analysis and extend it to consider effects of the small x high field regime. In the soft interactions two prime effects are a strong increase of the mean number of “wounded” nucleons - from about 6 to about 20 in $`pA`$ central collisions (due to increase of $`\sigma _{inel}(NN)`$) and a 50 $`\%`$ increase of the average impact parameters in $`pp`$ collisions (as manifested in the shrinkage with increase with energy of the diffractive peak in the elastic $`pp`$ collisions) making it possible for a proton to interact often simultaneously with nucleons which have essentially the same longitudinal coordinate but different impact parameters. At the same time geometry of $`pA`$ collisions at LHC should be more close to that in the classical mechanics because increase of cross sections combined with the suppression of the inelastic diffraction in $`pp`$ scattering, leads to the suppression of fluctuations in the value of effective $`NN`$ cross section (and hence the suppression of inelastic shadowing corrections in $`pA`$ scattering), to a very strong suppression of inelastic diffraction in $`pA`$ collisions as compared to the fixed target FNAL energies . In the hard interactions the prime effect is a strong increase of the gluon densities at small $`x`$ both in projectile and ion. Gluon densities can be measured at LHC up to ultra small $`x`$ $`10^{6÷7}`$ where PQCD will be probed in a new domain . As a consequence of blackening of the interaction of proton partons with nuclear partons at small $`x_A`$ one should expect disappearance in the proton fragmentation region of hadrons with small transverse momenta, and hence a strong suppression of nonperturbative QCD effects 222A similar phenomenon of the suppression of small transverse momenta for another quantity, the nuclear light cone wave function at small $`x`$, is discussed in the saturation models . Thus the high transverse momentum proton fragmentation region is a natural place to search for unusual QCD phases which should live long time because of the Lorentz dilatation of time. In spite of a small coupling constant, gluon densities of heavy ions become larger in a wide range of $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$ and impact parameters than that permitted by the conservation of probability within the leading twist approximation . Thus a decrease of the strong coupling constant with virtuality would be insufficient to support applicability of PQCD to the hard small $`x`$ processes in the kinematical domain where gluon fields may appear strong enough for nonperturbative QCD vacuum to become unstable and where equations of QCD may need to be modified. The possibility for novel QCD regime and therefore new phenomena are maximized in this QCD regime. 333It is important to distinguish between parton densities which are defined within the leading twist approximation only  and may increase with energy forever and physical quantities - cross sections/structure functions - whose increase with energy at given impact parameter is restricted by the probability conservation. At the same time interpretation of these novel effects would be much more definitive in $`pA`$ collisions than in the heavy ion collisions.

New classes of strong-interaction phenomena which occur within the short-distance, near-the-light-cone space-time region and which could be associated with perturbative QCD or with interface of perturbative and nonperturbative QCD are much more probable in $`pA`$ collisions than in $`pp`$ collisions. The densities of partons, and of energy-momentum, may be high enough to “burn away” the nonperturbative QCD vacuum structure in a cylinder of a radius $`1fm`$ and length $`2R_A`$, leaving behind only a dense partonic fluid governed by new QCD dynamics with small $`\alpha _s`$ but effective short-distance large couplings. If there is a large enhancement of hard-collision, gluon-induced processes, then there should be an enhancement of hard multiparton collisions, heavy-flavor production . The study of the $`x`$, $`p_t^2`$ and $`A`$-dependence of multiparton interactions, of the forward charm and beauty hadron production (in the direction of the fragmenting proton) should be especially incisive to address these questions.

Estimates of the kinematical region for the new QCD dynamics in proton (nucleus)-heavy nucleus collisions based on the LO formulae for the dipole cross section and the conservation of probability indicate  that for the central impact parameters for $`A200`$ and $`Q^225GeV^2`$ for quarks $`x_A510^5`$ and for gluons $`x_A10^3`$.

## 2 Measurements of nuclear parton densities at ultra small x

One of the fundamental issues in high energy QCD is the dynamics of the hard interactions in the small $`x`$ kinematics. Depending on the resolution scale ($`Q^2`$) one investigates here either the leading twist effects or the regime of strong color fields. Since the cross-sections for hard processes increase roughly linearly with $`A`$ (except for very small $`x`$ and relatively small $`Q^2`$ where the counting rates are high anyway), even short runs with nuclear beams will produce data samples sufficient to measure parton distributions with statistical  accuracy better than 1$`\%`$ practically down to the smallest $`x`$ which is kinematically allowed: $`x10^7`$ for quarks and $`x10^6`$ for gluons . The systematic errors for the ratios of nuclear and nucleon structure functions are also expected to be small since most of these errors cancel in the ratios of the cross-sections, cf .

There are several processes which could be used to probe the small $`x`$ dynamics in $`pA`$ collisions. They include the Drell-Yan pair production, study of dijets, jet + photon, charm production, diffractive exclusive production of three jets , multijet events. It is worth emphasizing that for these measurements it is necessary to detect jets, leptons and photons at rapidities close enough to the nucleon rapidity. In this $`y`$-range, the accompanying soft hadron multiplicities are relatively small, leading to a soft particle background comparable to that in $`pp`$ scattering. In fact, for $`|y_{max}y|(24)`$ the background level is likely to be significantly smaller than in $`pp`$ collisions due to suppression of the leading particle production in $`pA`$ scattering (for a thorough discussion of these reactions see ).

The measurements of the dimuon production appear to be more feasible experimentally for the forward angles than studies of the hadron production due to small energy losses for muons. In the kinematics where the leading twist dominates one can study both the quark small $`x`$ distributions (from the cross section at relatively small transverse momenta: $`p_t^2(\mu ^+\mu ^{})M^2(\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$, and the gluon distribution (from the measurements of the cross section at $`p_t(\mu ^+\mu ^{})M(\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ ). Note also that for the forward region a dimuon background from the charm production is likely to be rather small since muons in average carry only 1/3 of the energy in the charm decays.

## 3 Signals for onset of the black body limit

A fast increase with energy of structure functions of heavy nuclei contradicts to the probability conservation for a wide range of parton momenta and virtualities for the LHC energy range. On the contrary the rapid, power-like growth of structure function of a nucleon observed at HERA may continue forever because of the diffuse edge of a nucleon . At present new QCD dynamics of the regime of high parton densities where multiparton interactions are inhibited remains a subject of lively debates. PreQCD black body regime for the structure functions of heavy nuclei , QCD black body regime for hard processes off heavy nuclei , saturation of parton densities at given impact parameter , color glass condensate regime , turbulence and related scaling laws are possible options. For the estimates of the pattern of the novel phenomena we shall use in this text the formulae of black body regime because they are generic enough for the expectations of the onset of new QCD dynamics within the existing theoretical approaches. 444In the black regime highly virtual probe interacts at the same time with several high $`k_t`$ partons from the wave function of a hadron . This is qualitatively different from the asymptotic freedom limit where interaction with only one highly virtual parton are important. Hence the interacting parton is far from being free when probed by a hard probe of a large coherence length $`l_c=1/2m_Nx`$.

The use of nuclei because of their uniform density and a possibility to select scattering at the central impact parameters allows one to enhance the high parton density effects. Indeed, in the small $`x`$ regime a hard collision of a parton of the projectile nucleon with a parton of the nucleus occurs coherently with all the nucleons at a given impact parameter. The coherence length $`1/2m_Nx`$ by far exceeds the nuclear size: in the kinematic regime accessible at LHC it can reach up to $`10^5`$ fm (in the nucleus rest frame). In the rest frame of the nucleus this can be visualized in terms of the propagation of a parton in high density gluon fields over much larger distances than is possible with free nucleons. In the Breit frame it corresponds to the fact that small $`x`$ partons cannot be localized longitudinally to anything close to the Lorentz-contracted thickness of the nucleus. Thus low $`x`$ partons from different nucleons overlap spatially, creating much larger parton densities than in the free nucleon case. This leads to a large amplification of the multiparton hard collisions expected in QCD at small $`x`$; see e.g. . Eikonal approximation , constraints from the probability conservation  indicate that new QCD dynamics should reveal itself at significantly larger $`x`$ than in the proton and in more striking effects. Recently extensive studies of hard diffraction were performed at HERA, for review see . This allows to evaluate taming due to the leading twist nuclear shadowing which turns out to be large both in the gluon and quark channels and significant up to very large $`Q^2`$, - for the recent discussion see . However the leading twist taming being large is still insufficient to restore the probability conservation leaving a lot of room for the violation of leading twist approximation. It maybe more serious than merely due to enhancement of the high twist effects as the whole picture of interactions can qualitatively change. Really, the common wisdom is that smallness of $`\alpha _s`$ guarantees that bare particle is free within a hadron but this remarkable property which confirmed experimentally in many hard processes is violated in small x phenomena. One may think about this phenomenon in term of an effective violation of the asymptotic freedom in this limit. It is expected to occur in heavy nuclei at $`x`$ at least ten times larger than in the proton. Hence in the LHC kinematics the region where novel QCD phenomena are important will extend at least two orders of magnitude in $`x_A`$ for a large range of virtualities.

The space time picture of the black body limit in the proton-nucleus collisions can be seen best in the rest frame for the nucleus. A parton belonging to the proton emits a hard gluon (virtual photon) long before the target and interacts with the target in a black regime releasing the fluctuation, e.g. a Drell-Yan pair. This leads to a qualitative change in the picture of the proton-nucleus interactions for the partons with $`x_p,p_t`$ satisfying the condition that

$$x_A=\frac{4p_t^2}{x_ps_{NN}}$$
(1)
is in the black body kinematics for the resolution scale $`p_tp_t^{b.b.l.}(x_A)`$. Here $`p_t^{b.b.l.}(x_A)`$ is maximum $`p_t`$ for which the black body approximation is applicable. In the kinematics of LHC $`Q^24(p_t^{b.b.l.})^2`$ can be estimated by using formulae derived in . At minimal $`x_A`$ it may appear as large as $`(p_t^{b.b.l.}(x_A))^2=15GeV^2`$ . All the partons with such $`x_p`$ will obtain $`p_t(jet)p_t^{b.b.l.}(x_A)`$ leading to the multijet production. The black body regime will extend down in $`x_p`$ with increase of the incident energy. For LHC for $`p_t3GeV/c`$ this regime may cover the whole region of $`x_p0.01`$ where of the order ten partons resides. Hence in this limit most of the final states will correspond to multiparton collisions. For $`p_t2GeV/c`$ the region extends to $`x_p0.001`$. At LHC collisions of such partons correspond to the central rapidities. Dynamics of conversion of the high $`p_t`$ partons with similar rapidities to hadrons is certainly a collective effect which requires a special consideration.

Inclusive observables For the calculation of the total cross sections the logic similar to the one used in the consideration of $`\gamma ^{}`$ \- nucleus scattering  should be applicable. In particular for the case of the total cross section of the dimuon production can be evaluated as:

$$\frac{d\sigma (p+A\mu ^+\mu ^{}+X)}{dx_Adx_p}=\frac{4\pi \alpha ^2}{9}\frac{K(x_A,x_p,M^2)}{M^2}F_{2p}(x_p,Q^2)\frac{1}{6\pi ^2}M^22\pi R_A^2\mathrm{ln}(x_0/x_A),$$
(2)
for large but not too large dimuon masses, $`M^2`$. In particular we estimate $`M^2(bbl)(x_A=10^760GeV^2`$. Here $`K`$-factor has the same origin as in the leading twist case, but it should be smaller since it originates from the gluon emissions only from the parton belonging to the proton, $`R_A`$ is the nuclear radius, and $`x_0`$ is maximal $`x_0`$ for which the black body limit is valid. Hence the expected $`M^2`$ dependence of the dimuon production is qualitatively different in this case than in the case of $`pp`$ scattering where scattering at large impact parameters may mask the black body limit contribution. Also the $`x_A`$ dependence in this limit becomes pretty weak.

The study of the $`p_t`$ distribution of the dimuons may provide also a signal for the onset of the black body regime. Similar to the case of $`p_t`$ distribution of leading partons in the deep inelastic scattering  one should expect a broadening of the $`p_t`$ distribution of the dimuons in the black body limit as compared to the DGLAP expectations, see  for a calculation of this effect in the color glass condensate model.

With further decrease of $`x_A`$ formulae of black limit will probably overestimate cross section because the interaction with heavy nucleus of sea quarks and gluons in the proton would become black also.

The onset of the black body limit will lead also to gross changes in the hadron production: much stronger drop with $`x_F`$ of the spectrum in the proton fragmentation region accompanied by a gross $`p_t`$ broadening of the spectrum as well as the enhancement of the hadron production at smaller rapidities, see discussion in section 4.3.

It is worth emphasizing here that onset of the black body limit for ultra small $`x_A`$ will pose limits on using the forward kinematics for the measurements of the parton densities at larger $`x_A`$. Indeed as soon as one tries to use large enough $`x_p`$ for the nuclear parton density measurements one would have to take into account that collisions of these partons with nuclear partons are always accompanied by a significant $`p_t`$ broadening associated with the interaction with “black component” of the nucleus wave function. As a minimum this would lead to a significant $`p_t`$ broadening of the $`p_t`$ distribution of the produced hard system. One can also question the validity of the leading twist expansion for the cross sections integrated over the transverse momentum of the produced system. To investigate these phenomena an ability to do measurements at fixed $`x_A`$ and different $`x_p`$ would be very important.

## 4 Mapping of the three dimensional nucleon parton structure

The systematic studies of hard inclusive processes during the last two decades have led to a pretty good understanding of the single parton densities in nucleons. However very little is known about multiparton correlations in nucleons which can provide critical new insights into the dynamics of the strong interactions, and allow to discriminate between different models of nucleons. Such correlations may be generated, for example, by the fluctuations of the transverse size of the color field in the nucleon leading, via color screening, to correlated fluctuations of the densities of gluons and quarks.

A related source of correlations is QCD evolution, since a selection of a parton with a given $`x,Q^2`$ may lead to a local (in transverse plane) enhancement of the parton density at different $`x`$ values. Also, practically nothing is known about possible correlations between the transverse size of a particular configuration in the nucleon and the longitudinal distribution of partons in this configuration.

### 4.1 Multi-jet production and double parton distributions

It was recognized already more than two decades ago  that the increase of parton densities at small $`x`$ leads to a strong increase of the probability of nucleon-nucleon collisions where two or more partons of each projectile experience pair-vice independent hard interactions. Although the production of multijets through the double parton scattering mechanism was investigated in several experiments  at $`pp,p\overline{p}`$ colliders, the interpretation of the data was hampered by the need to model both the longitudinal and the transverse partonic correlations at the same time. The studies of proton-nucleus collisions at LHC will provide a feasible opportunity to study separately the longitudinal and transverse partonic correlations in the nucleon as well as to check the validity of the underlying picture of multiple collisions.

The simplest case of a multiparton process is the double parton collision. Since the momentum scale $`p_t`$ of a hard interaction corresponds to much smaller transverse distances $`1/p_t`$ in the coordinate space than the hadronic radius, in a double parton collision the two interaction regions are well separated in the transverse space. Also in the c.m. frame pairs of partons from the colliding hadrons are located in pancakes of thickness $`(1/x_1+1/x_2)/p_{c.m.}`$. So two hard collisions occur practically simultaneously as soon as $`x_1,x_2`$ are not too small and hence there is no cross talk between two hard collisions. A consequence is that the different parton processes add incoherently in the cross section. The double parton scattering cross section, being proportional to the square of the elementary parton-parton cross section, is therefore characterized by a scale factor with dimension of the inverse of a length squared. The dimensional quantity is provided by the nonperturbative input to the process, namely by the multiparton distributions. In fact, because of the localization of the interactions in transverse space, the two pairs of colliding partons are aligned, in such a way that the transverse distance between the interacting partons of the target hadron is practically the same as the transverse distance between the partons of the projectile. The double parton distribution is therefore a function of two momentum fractions and of their transverse distance, and it can be written as $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(x,x^{},b)`$. Actually $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ depends also on the virtualities of the partons, $`Q^2,Q^2`$, though to make the expressions more compact we will not write explicitly this $`Q^2`$ dependence. Hence the double parton scattering cross section for the two “two $``$ two” parton processes $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ in an inelastic interaction between hadrons $`a`$ and $`b`$ can be written as:

$`\sigma _D(\alpha ,\beta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m}{2}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{\Gamma }_a(x_1,x_2;b)\widehat{\sigma }_\alpha (x_1,x_1^{})\widehat{\sigma }_\beta (x_2,x_2^{})\mathrm{\Gamma }_b(x_1^{},x_2^{};b)𝑑x_1𝑑x_1^{}𝑑x_2𝑑x_2^{}d^2b}`$ (3)
where $`m=1`$ for indistinguishable parton processes and $`m=2`$ for distinguishable parton processes. Note that though the factorization approximation of Eq.(3) is generally accepted in the analyses of the multijet processes and appears natural based on the geometry of the process no formal proof exists in the literature. As we will show below the study of the A-dependence of this process will allow to perform a stringent test of this approximation.

Here to simplify the discussion we neglect small non-additive effects in the parton densities, which is a reasonable approximation for $`0.02x0.5`$. In this case we have to take into account only $`b`$\- space correlations of partons in individual nucleons.

One has therefore two different contributions to the double parton scattering cross section: $`\sigma _D=\sigma _D^1+\sigma _D^2`$. The first one, $`\sigma _1^D`$, interaction with two partons of the same nucleon in the nucleus, is the same as for the nucleon target (the only difference being the enhancement of the parton flux) and the corresponding cross section is

$$\sigma _D^1=\sigma _Dd^2BT(B)=A\sigma _D,$$
(4)
where

$$T(B)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑z\rho _A(r),T(B)d^2B=A$$
(5)
is the nuclear thickness, as a function of the impact parameter of the hadron-nucleus collision $`B`$.

The contribution to the term in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_A(x_1^{},x_2^{},b)`$ due to the partons originated from different nucleons of the target, $`\sigma _D^2`$, can be calculated solely from the geometry of the process by observing that the nuclear density does not change within a transverse scale $`bR_A`$. It rapidly increases with A $`T^2(B)d^2B`$. Using information from the CDF double scattering experiment on the mean transverse separation of partons in a nucleon, one finds that the contribution of the second term should dominate in the case of proton - heavy nucleus collisions: $`\sigma _D^1/\sigma _D^2.68(A/12)^{.39}`$ . Hence one expects a stronger than $`A`$ increase of the multijet production in $`pA`$ collisions at LHC. Measurements with a set of nuclei would to measure the double parton distributions in nucleons and also to check the validity of the QCD factorization for such processes which appears natural but which so far was not derived in pQCD. An important application of the discussed process would be to investigate transverse correlations between the nuclear partons in the shadowing region. This would require a selection of both partons from the nucleus in the shadowing region, $`x_Ax_{sh}10^2`$. 555The A-dependence of the ratio of $`\sigma _2/\sigma _1`$ in the kinematics where only one of the nuclear partons has $`x_Ax_{sh}`$ is practically the same as for the case when both nuclear partons have $`xx_{sh}`$.

As we already mentioned in section 3 partons with sufficiently large $`x_p`$ satisfying Eq.1 are expected to interact with a probability of the order one with small $`x`$ partons of nucleus. As a result a hard collision of the partons with sufficiently large $`x_p`$ and $`x_A0.01`$ will be accompanied by production of a minijet/minijets at the black body kinematics with $`p_tp_t^{b.b.l.}(x_A)`$. Most of sufficiently fast partons of the protons will generate minijets leading to a strong suppression of cross section of the events with only two jets.

Detectors with sufficiently large rapidity acceptance would allow to detect events originating from the triple parton collisions at $`x_Ax_{sh}`$ and large enough $`p_t`$ where $`p_t`$ broadening related to the blackbody limit effects are sufficiently small. This provide stringent tests of the dynamics of the hard interactions and provide additional information on two parton correlations as well as unique information on triple parton correlations.

Other opportunities with multi-jets include

* Probing correlations between partons in the nucleus at high densities, i.e. for $`x_{1A},x_{2A}10^3`$, which would provide qualitatively new information about the dynamics of nuclear shadowing and the presence of possible new condensates of partons.
* Studying the accompanying soft hadron production (cf. the discussion in Section 4.2), which would allow measurement of the transverse size of a proton configuration containing partons $`x_1,x_2`$. In particular, the production of 4 jets with two jets at large $`x`$ in the proton fragmentation region $`x_1+x_20.5`$ may provide another way to look for point-like configurations in nucleons, see  and  for discussion of some other options.

### 4.2 Proton-ion collisions probe transverse nucleon structure

As we discussed in , one supposes that in some subclass of events the distribution of constituents in the initial proton may be unusually local in the transverse (impact parameter) plane when the proton collides with the ion. If this is so, its effective cross-section per nucleon will be greatly reduced, perhaps all the way to the perturbative-QCD level. If the effective cross-section of such a point-like configuration goes below 20mb, there will be an appreciable probability that it can penetrate through the center of a $`Pb`$ ion and survive. This would lead to a highly enhanced yield of diffractive production of the products of the point-like configuration in collisions with heavy ions.

Not only might the properties of the final-state collision products depend upon the nature of the transverse structure of the proton primary at arrival at the collision point, but even the conventional parton distributions may also be affected. For example, let us consider, a nucleon as a quark and small diquark connected by a narrow QCD flux-tube. It should be clear that if the flux-tube is at right angles to the collision axis at arrival, then the valence partons will have comparable longitudinal momentum or $`x`$. On the other hand, if the flux tube is parallel to the direction of motion, then one of the valence systems will have very large $`x`$, and the other very small. This happens because in this case the internal longitudinal momenta of the valence systems, in the rest frame of the projectile proton, are in opposite directions. Therefore the smallness of the configuration is correlated with the joint $`x`$-distribution of its constituents. This kind of nonfactorization may be determined by the study of the perturbative-QCD processes of dilepton, direct-photon, or dijet production as a function of the centrality of the collision, multiplicity of soft hadrons, as well as a function of the atomic number. 666The impact-parameter dependence is accessible in the proton - nucleus collisions via a study of nuclear fragmentation into a number of channels, for an extensive discussion see . Naturally such studies would require also experimental investigation of the production of the soft hadrons as a function of impact parameter at LHC energies where it may differ quite strongly from the one observed at fixed target energies.

One possible kinematics where a strong correlation is expected is when a parton with large $`x`$($`x0.6`$) is selected in the proton. The presence of such a parton requires three quarks to exchange rather large momenta. Hence one may expect that these configurations have a smaller transverse size and therefore interact with the target with a smaller effective cross-section $`\sigma _{eff}(x)`$. Suggestions for such a dependence of the size on $`x`$ are widely discussed in the literature. Using as a guide a geometric (eikonal type) picture of $`pA`$ interactions and neglecting (for simplicity) shadowing effects for nuclear parton densities one can estimate the number of wounded nucleons $`\nu (x,A)`$ in events with a hard trigger (Drell-Yan pair, $`\gamma `$-jet, dijet,…) as a function of $`\sigma _{eff}`$ :

$$\nu (x,A)=1+\sigma _{eff}(x)\frac{A1}{A^2}T^2(b)d^2b,$$
(6)
where the nuclear density per unit area $`T(b)`$ is defined in Eq.( 5). At LHC for average inelastic $`pPb`$ collisions and $`\sigma _{eff}\sigma _{inel}(pp)`$ Eq.6 leads to $`\nu `$ 10. This is somewhat larger than the average number of wounded nucleons in $`pA`$ collisions, due to the selection of more central impact parameters in events with a hard trigger.

A decrease of the effective cross-section for large $`x`$, say, by a factor of 2, would result in a comparable drop of the number of particles produced at central rapidities as well as in a smaller number of nucleons produced in the fragmentation of the nucleus. in the nucleus fragmentation region.

### 4.3 $`A`$-dependence of the particle production

#### Particle production in the proton fragmentation region

The $`A`$-dependence of hadron production in the proton fragmentation region remains one of the least understood aspects of hadron-nucleus interactions. Practically all available data are inclusive and correspond to the energies where the cross section of inelastic $`NN`$ scattering is about three times smaller than at LHC. They indicate that the cross-section is dominated by the production of leading particles at large impact parameters, where the projectile interacts with only one or two nucleons of the nucleus. As a result very little information is available about hadron production at the central impact parameters which are most crucial for the study, for example of $`AA`$ collisions. Theoretical predictions for this region are also rather uncertain.

In eikonal type models, where the energy is split between several soft interactions, one may expect a very strong decrease of the yield of the leading particles. The dependence is expected to be exponential with path length in the nucleus; their mean energy is attenuated exponentially. On the other hand, if the valence partons of the projectile do not lose a significant amount of their initial momentum, as suggested by the models motivated by perturbative QCD, see review in , the spectrum of leading particles may approach a finite limit for large $`A`$ and central impact parameters . Indeed in this case the leading partons will acquire significant transverse momenta and will not be able to coalescence back into leading baryons and mesons as it seemingly happens in the nucleon-nucleon collisions. As a result they will fragment practically independently leading to much softer distributions in the longitudinal momentum for mesons and especially for baryons .

We discussed above that the strength of the interaction of fast partons in the nucleon ($`x_p10^2`$ for LHC) with heavy nuclei at the central impact parameters may approach the black body limit and that under this scenario all these partons will acquire large transverse momenta $`p_t^{b.b.l.}(x_A)`$. 777Hence in the black body limit $`p_t`$ broadening of the partons should be much larger than at low energies where $`p_t`$ broadening is consistent with the QCD multiple rescattering model , see  for the discussion of the matching of these two regimes. This would lead to a very significant $`p_t`$ broadening of the spectrum of leading hadrons . Probably the most feasible way to study this effect will be to measure the $`p_t`$ distribution of the leading neutrons for the collisions at the central impact parameters, which will closely follow the $`p_t`$ distribution of leading quarks  It is worth emphasizing that a strong $`p_t`$ broadening which should increase with increase of $`x_F`$ clearly distinguishes this mechanism of the suppression of the leading hadron spectrum from the soft physics effect of the increase of the total $`pp`$ cross-section by nearly a factor of three from fixed target energies.

#### Particle production in the central region

The Gribov-Glauber model including inelastic screening effects, but neglecting the final state interactions between the hadrons produced in different Pomeron exchanges, as well as neglecting the interactions of these hadrons with the nuclear target, leads to a prediction that at high energies and rapidities $`y`$, such that $`|y_py|1`$, the inclusive spectrum of produced hadrons should be proportional to that in the inclusive cross-section of $`hN`$ scattering:

$$\frac{d\sigma ^{p+Ah+X}(y,p_T)}{dyd^2p_T}=A\frac{d\sigma ^{p+Nh+X}(y,p_T)}{dyd^2p_T}.$$
(7)
Since $`\sigma _{inel}(pA)/\sigma _{inel}(pN)A^{2/3}`$, Eq.( 7) implies that the multiplicity of particles produced in the inelastic $`pA`$ collisions should increase with $`A`$, roughly as $`A^{1/3}`$. Data at fixed target energies do not contradict this relation, but the energy is too low for an unambiguous interpretation. Effects of splitting the energy between multiple soft $`NN`$ interactions are much larger in the nucleus-nucleus collisions than in proton-nucleus collisions so checking whether similar formula is valid for AA collisions would require energies much higher than those available at RHIC.

The opposite extreme is to assume that interactions of partons in the black body regime become important in a large range of $`x_p10^2`$. In this case multiple scatterings between the partons, their independent fragmentation together with associated QCD radiation (gluon bremsstrahlung) may produce the major part of the total entropy and transverse energy and will lead to enhancement of the production of hadrons at central rapidities as compared to the the expectations of the Gribov-Glauber model.

#### Particle production in the ion fragmentation region

For the rapidities close to the nucleus rapidity, there are indications of the contribution of slow hadron re-interactions, which lead to an increase of the multiplicity of nucleons with momenta $`1.0p_N0.3`$ GeV, as compared with expectations neglecting final state re-interactions (a factor of $`2`$ for heavy nuclei) . As we have discussed above, it is doubtful that the Gribov-Glauber picture is correct at LHC energies, so one may expect significant deviations from the expectations based on Eq.( 7). It is likely that color quark system with rapidities close to $`y_A`$ will be excited along the cylinder of the radius $``$ 1 fm and length $`R_A`$. This may result in unusual properties of the hadron production in the nucleus fragmentation region including production of exotic multiquark, multigluon…states.

It must be emphasized that a quantitative understanding of the physics of particle production in $`pA`$ collisions in this phase-space region is a prerequisite for the understanding the corresponding phenomenology in $`AA`$ collisions.

In conclusion, studies of proton-nucleus scattering at LHC will allow to study strong interactions in the high field domain over extended region of rapidities. New phenomena will be especially prominent in the proton fragmentation region, though they will also extend to the central region and to the nucleus fragmentation region.

It is our pleasure to thank J.Bjorken for the joint study of the $`pA`$ physics for the FELIX project and numerous discussions of the forward physics. We also thank GIF and DOE for support.


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# Lower bounds for the energy in a crumpled elastic sheet – A minimal ridge

## 1 Introduction

Everyday experience tells us that thin elastic sheets crumple, when confined into a small volume, e.g. a sheet of paper “confined” by ones hands. Crumpling also plays an important role in the mechanical behavior of packaging material and in the dissipation of the energy of collisions by the “crumple zones” of automobiles. Crumpling is therefore a problem of much intrinsic interest, but understanding this behavior is complicated by the complex morphology of a typical crumpled sheet.

Despite the complicated appearance of a crumpled sheet, the crumpling phenomenon is in itself very robust. It is easily observed in thin sheets made from a variety of materials, suggesting that it can be studied using simplified or idealized models that capture the essential features of thin elastic sheets. This approach leads one to consider a crumpled sheet as a minimum energy configuration for a simple elastic energy functional for thin sheets, viz. the Föpl – von Karman (FvK) energy. Using this approach of elastic energy minimization, the crumpling response is now understood as a result of the elastic energy of the sheet concentrating on a small subset of the entire sheet . The energy in a crumpled sheet is concentrated on a network of thin line-like creases (ridges) that meet in point-like vertices. Recent work has resulted in quantitative understanding of both the vertices  and the ridges . Scaling laws governing the behavior of crumpled sheets have been obtained in the physics literature .

Minimum energy configurations for the FvK energy have also been studied in the context of the blistering problem, viz. the buckling of membranes as a result of isotropic compression along the boundary. The blistering problem is relevant to the delamination of thin films that are chemically deposited at high temperatures, as well as the mechanical behavior of micro-fabricated thin-film diaphragms .

There is a considerable body of mathematical work focused on the blistering problem . Upper and lower bounds have been obtained for approximations to the elastic energy , for the FvK energy  and for full three dimensional nonlinear elasticity . The FvK energy and full three dimensional nonlinear elasticity give the same scaling for the upper and the lower bounds. This yields a rigorous scaling law for the energy of a blister. As we discuss below, the scaling laws for the blistering problem are different from those for the crumpling problem, even for the same energy functional. This indicates that the energy minimizing configurations for the FvK energy show an interesting dependence on the boundary conditions.

The minimization of the FvK elastic energy is an example of a non-convex variational problem that is regularized by a singular perturbation . It is well known that this can lead to a variety of multiple-scale behaviors including energy concentration and/or small scale oscillations in the minimizers .

Multiple scale behaviors, both microstructure and singularities, are ubiquitous in condensed matter systems. The crumpling phenomenon appears to be a particularly simple and tractable instance of multiple scale behavior. For this reason, there has been much recent interest in physics literature about the nature of the crumpling phenomenon . Asymptotic analysis  and scaling arguments  show that the ridge energy scales as

$$_r\sigma ^{5/3}L^{1/3},$$

where $`\sigma `$ is the thickness of the sheet, and $`L`$ is the length of the ridge. Ben-Amar et al and Mahadevan et al show that the energy of a $`d`$-cone scales as

$$_c\sigma ^2\mathrm{log}(L/a),$$

where $`a`$ is the radius of the core associated with the vertex. It is clear that the ridge energy is asymptotically larger than the vertex energy as $`\sigma 0`$. However, which of these two energies is important for a given sheet depends on the relation between the nondimensional thickness $`ϵ=\sigma /L`$ of the sheet, and the “crossover thickness” $`ϵ^{}=\sigma /L`$ which is determined by setting $`_r=_c`$. $`ϵ^{}`$ in turn depends on the values of the multiplicative constants for these scaling laws.

These multiplicative constants cannot be determined by scaling arguments. Mahadevan et al estimate the constant for the vertex energy numerically using an ansatz for the shape of a sheet near the vertex, and they find that

$$_c100\varphi ^2\sigma ^2\mathrm{log}(L/a),$$

where $`\varphi `$ is the complement of the tip angle of the cone . Based on Lobkovsky’s work , Boudaoud et al estimate the value of the constant in the ridge energy as $`1`$. This implies, for the experiments in Refs.  and , the vertex energy dominates the ridge energy.

It would be useful to prove these scaling laws, and determine the multiplicative constants rigorously, that is, in an ansatz-free manner. In this paper, we propose a model problem that yields structures analogous to a single ridge in a crumpled sheet. We prove a rigorous lower bound (with a numerical value for the multiplicative constant) for the elastic energy in our model problem. This is a step toward rigorously proving the scaling law of Lobkovsky et alfor the ridge energy . We also discuss how the techniques in this paper can be extended to prove similar results for a “real” crumpled sheet, as opposed to our model problem.

This paper is organized as follows – In Sec. 2, we describe the problem of interest, set up the relevant energy functional and determine the appropriate boundary conditions. We also rescale the various quantities to a form that is suitable for further analysis, and recast the problem in terms of the rescaled quantities. In Sec. 3, we prove our main result, viz. a lower bound for the elastic energy for our boundary conditions. We present a concluding discussion in Sec. 4.

## 2 The Elastic energy

We are interested in a minimal ridge, i.e., the single crease that is formed when a long rectangular elastic strip is bent through an angle by clamping the lateral boundaries to a bent frame. This situation is depicted in Figure 1.

From the symmetry of the problem, it is clear that we only need to consider one half of the strip. This is represented schematically in Figure 2. We will use (the material) coordinates $`(x,y)`$ on the reference half strip $`|x|L`$, $`0y\mathrm{}`$. Also, we associate a $`(u,v,w)`$ coordinate systems in space, so that as $`y\mathrm{}`$, the half-strip is asymptotically in the $`w=0`$ plane, as depicted in Figure 2. The grid in the figure is generated by the lines $`x=\text{constant}`$ and $`y=\text{constant}`$ that are straight in the reference (material) coordinates. $`w`$ represents the out of plane deformation, and the in-plane coordinate are chosen so that the $`u`$ and the $`v`$ axes are asymptotically parallel to the $`x`$ and $`y`$ axes respectively as $`y\mathrm{}`$. Since the sheet is bent through an angle $`2\alpha `$, as $`y\mathrm{}`$, the sheet will lie in the plane $`w=v\mathrm{tan}(2\alpha )`$. The symmetry of the two halves implies that the the line $`y=0`$ maps into the plane $`w\mathrm{tan}\alpha +v=0`$, which bisects the angle between the planes $`w=0`$ (the asymptote as $`y\mathrm{}`$) and $`w=v\mathrm{tan}(2\alpha )`$ (the asymptote as $`y\mathrm{}`$). The symmetry between the two halves also implies that the tangent to the lines $`x=\text{constant}`$ at $`y=0`$ should be perpendicular to the plane $`w\mathrm{tan}\alpha +v=0`$. Consequently $`u_y=0`$ and $`w_y=v_y\mathrm{tan}\alpha `$ at $`y=0`$.

A mathematically justified way to obtain the elastic energy of the deformed sheet is to treat the sheet as a three dimensional (albeit thin) object and use a full nonlinear three dimensional elastic energy functional for the energy density. This approach however does not take advantage of the “thinness” of the sheet. In particular, we would like to treat the thin sheet as a two dimensional object. This will greatly reduce the complexity of the problem. The derivation of reduced dimensional descriptions of thin sheets has a long history. There is a classical theory for thin elastic sheets built on the work of Euler, Cauchy, Kirchoff, Föpl and Von Karman .

Many modern authors have considered the problem of deriving a reduced dimensional theory  from three dimensional elasticity in a mathematically rigorous fashion through $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ – convergence . $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ – convergence is the appropriate notion for convergence in variational problems. In the context of thin sheets, roughly speaking, finding the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ – limit amounts to identifying an appropriate two dimensional energy functional whose minimizers give the limiting behavior of the minimizers of the full three dimensional energy in the limit the thickness $`\sigma 0`$. This problem hasn’t been solved in its entirety.

There are two situations for which reduced dimensional theories have been derived rigorously as $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ – limits of full three dimensional elasticity. Membrane theories  are applicable in situations where the stretching is essentially uniform through the thickness of the sheet and bending theories  are applicable in situations where the the sheet is essentially unstretched, and all the elastic energy is due to strains that are first order in the thickness of the sheet.

Neither of these theories are applicable for the minimal ridge. For the minimal ridge, both the stretching (membrane) energy and the bending energy are important. In fact, a ridge is a result of the competition between these two energies. So we turn to the classical Föpl – von Karman ansatz for an appropriate definition of the elastic energy . Although the FvK energy is not rigorously derived from three dimensional elasticity, it can be thought of as the sum of the membrane and the bending energies that have been derived rigorously in different limiting situations. We will further assume that, for the minimal ridge, the deflections $`|w|,|ux|`$ and $`|vy|`$ are small compared to the natural length scale $`L`$. The strains are of the order of the square of the maximum deflection divided by $`L`$ and they are small. After some rescaling, the energy of the deformed sheet is given by the linearized FvK energy

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \left[(u_x+w_x^21)^2+\frac{1}{2}(v_x+u_y+2w_xw_y)^2+(v_y+w_y^21)^2\right]𝑑x𝑑y}`$ (1)
$`+\sigma ^2{\displaystyle (w_{xx}^2+2w_{xy}^2+w_{yy}^2)𝑑x𝑑y}.`$
where $`x`$ and $`y`$ are reference coordinates on the sheet, $`u`$ and $`v`$ are in-plane coordinates, $`w`$ is the out of plane displacement and $`\sigma `$ is the thickness of the sheet. The integrand for the first integral is given by the squares of the linearized strains,

$$\gamma _{xx}=u_x+w_x^21,\gamma _{xy}=\gamma _{yx}=w_xw_y+\frac{1}{2}(v_x+u_y),\gamma _{yy}=v_y+w_y^21.$$

The blistering of thin films is also described by the elastic energy in (1). A similar energy also describes multiple scale buckling in free elastic sheets (i.e. sheets that are not forced through the boundary conditions) that are not intrinsically flat .

The difference between the blistering problem and a minimal ridge is in the boundary conditions, which we describe below. Since the strains are assumed to be small, $`v_y+w_y^21`$. If the bending half-angle $`\alpha 1`$, so that $`\mathrm{tan}\alpha \alpha `$, we get $`w_y=\alpha \text{ at }y=0`$. Since the deformation goes to zero far away from the bend, we have

$$|ux|0,|vy|0,w0\text{ as }y\mathrm{},$$

Also, the lateral boundaries at $`x=\pm L`$ are clamped to the frame. Therefore,

$$u=x,v=w=0,\text{ at }x=\pm L.$$

Note that the appropriate boundary condition for the minimal ridge at $`y=0`$ is a free boundary condition, subject to the symmetry requirement $`w+v\mathrm{tan}\alpha =0`$. We are going to replace this free boundary condition with a Dirichlet boundary condition

$$v=v_0(x),w=w_0(x)\text{ at }y=0,$$

where we will leave the functions $`v_0(x)`$ and $`w_0(x)`$ unspecified, except for a size condition. Defining

$$a=\underset{[L,L]}{\mathrm{max}}(|v_0(x)|,|w_0(x)|),$$

we impose the size condition by requiring that $`a`$ be “small”.

### 2.1 Rescalings

The relevant small parameter in the problem is the non-dimensional thickness of the sheet, $`ϵ=\sigma /L`$. Following Lobkovsky , we introduce the rescaled coordinates and displacements by

$$x=LX,y=\sigma ^{1/3}L^{2/3}Y,$$

and

$$w=\sigma ^{1/3}L^{2/3}W,v=y+\sigma ^{1/3}L^{2/3}V,u=x+\sigma ^{2/3}L^{1/3}U.$$

Since $`\sigma ,L,x,y,u,v,w`$ all have dimensions of a length, it is clear that the rescaled quantities $`X,Y,U,V,W`$ are all dimensionless. With these rescalings, the dimensionless energy $`I=\sigma ^{5/3}L^{1/3}`$ is given by

$`I(U,V,W)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \left[(U_X+W_X^2)^2+\frac{ϵ^{2/3}}{2}(V_X+U_Y+2W_XW_Y)^2+ϵ^{4/3}(V_Y+W_Y^2)^2\right]}`$ (2)
$`+\left[W_{YY}^2+2ϵ^{2/3}W_{XY}^2+ϵ^{4/3}W_{XX}^2\right]dXdY.`$
Our quest for rigorous scaling results for the energy $``$ reduces to the following – Show that the rescaled energy $`I`$, of a minimizer $`(U^{},V^{},W^{})`$, is bounded above and below by positive constants uniform in the dimensionless thickness parameter $`ϵ`$, as $`ϵ0`$.

Setting

$$W_0(X)=\sigma ^{1/3}L^{2/3}w_0(LX),V_0(X)=\sigma ^{1/3}L^{2/3}v_0(LX),$$

the rescaled quantities satisfy the boundary conditions

$$V=V_0(X),W=W_0(X),W_Y=\alpha \text{ at }Y=0,$$

and

$$U0,V0,W0\text{ as }Y\mathrm{},$$

We have the lateral boundary conditions

$$U=V=W=0\text{ at }X=\pm 1.$$

Also, the deformation at $`Y=0`$ satisfies $`|V_0(X)|A`$ and $`|W_0(X)|A`$ where $`A=\sigma ^{1/3}L^{2/3}a`$.

## 3 Lower Bound

In this section, we prove a lower bound for the linearized Elastic energy in Eq. (1), provided that the length scale $`a`$ associated with the boundary conditions satisfies a size condition.

###### Theorem 3.1.

$`(u,v,w)`$ is as defined in Eq. (1). There is a constant $`b>0`$ such that, for all $`uH^1,vH^1`$ and $`wH^2W^{1,4}`$ satisfying the boundary conditions

$`|ux|0,|vy|0,w0\text{ as }y\mathrm{},`$
$`u=x,v=w=0,\text{ at }x=\pm L,`$
$`v=v_0(x),w=w_0(x)\text{ at }y=0,`$
and the size condition

$$\underset{[L,L]}{\mathrm{max}}(|v_0(x)|,|w_0(x)|)=ab\sigma ^{1/3}L^{2/3}\alpha ^{2/3},$$

we have the lower bound

$$(u,v,w)\frac{2}{5}\alpha ^{7/3}\sigma ^{5/3}L^{1/3}.$$

###### Remark.

We will prove the theorem by proving the scaled version of the statement, viz., the rescaled boundary conditions along with the rescaled size condition

$$\mathrm{max}(|V_0(X)|,|W_0(X)|)=Ab\alpha ^{2/3},$$

imply that

$$I\frac{2\alpha ^{7/3}}{5}.$$

###### Remark.

The hypothesis for the theorem includes a size condition on the displacement at $`y=0`$. This is somewhat unsatisfying, as it is not a priori obvious that a ridge in a “real” crumpled sheet will satisfy this condition.

In our search for a lower bound, we can assume $`I(U,V,W)<\mathrm{}`$ w.l.o.g. From Eq. (2), it follows that for $`\sigma >0`$, $`WH^2`$. By the standard trace theorems, the boundary conditions $`W(X,0)=W_0(X)`$ and $`W_Y(X,0)=\alpha `$ are therefore assumed pointwise for almost every $`X`$.

Since $`U=0`$ at $`X=\pm 1`$, it follows that $`_1^1(U_X+W_X^2)𝑑X=_1^1W_X^2𝑑X`$. Using this together with Jensen’s inequality we get

$`I(U,V,W)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \left[(U_X+W_X^2)^2+W_{YY}^2\right]𝑑X𝑑Y}`$ (3)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle _1^1}W_X^2𝑑X\right)^2+{\displaystyle _1^1}W_{YY}^2𝑑X\right]𝑑Y`$
Thus the functional

$$E(W)=_0^{\mathrm{}}\left[\frac{1}{2}\left(_1^1W_X^2𝑑X\right)^2+_1^1W_{YY}^2𝑑X\right]𝑑Y$$

bounds $`I(U,V,W)`$ from below. Hence it suffices to obtain a lower bound for $`E`$ with the given hypothesis to prove the theorem.

Let $`E_b`$ and $`E_s`$ denote the quantities

$$E_b=W_{YY}^2𝑑X𝑑Y,$$

and

$$E_s=_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{2}\left(_1^1W_X^2𝑑X\right)^2𝑑Y.$$

Although $`E_b`$ and $`E_s`$ are only lower bounds for the “true” bending and the stretching energies $`I_b`$ and $`I_s`$, we will nonetheless call $`E_b`$ and $`E_s`$ the bending and the stretching energy for convenience.

For every $`X`$, we define

$$\rho (X)=\left[_0^{\mathrm{}}W_{YY}^2(X,Y)𝑑Y\right]^1,$$

and for every $`Y`$, we define

$$\tau (Y)=_1^1W_X^2𝑑X.$$

Since $`E<\mathrm{}`$, $`\rho (X)>0`$ (a.e.) and $`\tau (Y)<\mathrm{}`$ (a.e.).

For any function $`f`$ depending on $`X`$ and $`Y`$, let $`f_Y^2`$ denote $`_1^1|f(X,Y)|^2𝑑X`$, so that,

$$\tau (Y)=W_X_Y^2.$$

$`\rho (X)`$ is a “local” (in $`X`$) measure of the bending energy, and $`[\rho (X)]^1`$ can be thought of as the bending energy density in $`X`$ that is obtained by integrating out the $`Y`$ dependence. We can also think of $`\rho (X)`$ as the length scale associated with the bending energy as a function of $`X`$, viz., we expect that the bending energy density in $`Y`$ decays rapidly for $`Y/\rho (X)1`$ (See Fig. 1). Likewise, $`[\tau (Y)]^2`$ is a local (in $`Y`$) measure of the stretching energy. In terms of $`\rho (X)`$ and $`\tau (Y)`$, the bending an the stretching energies are given by

$$E_b=_1^1\frac{1}{\rho (X)}𝑑XE_s=_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{2}[\tau (Y)]^2𝑑Y.$$

We now begin our proof of the theorem. The idea behind the proof is to show that the stretching energy $`E_s`$ can be bounded from below by a negative power of the bending energy $`E_b`$, so that the total energy $`E_s+E_b`$ tends to $`+\mathrm{}`$ as $`E_b0`$ and $`E_b\mathrm{}`$. This ensures the existence of a positive lower bound for $`E`$ (and consequently also for $`I`$).

###### Lemma 3.2.

For every $`Y`$, we have the inequality

$$W_Y^2\alpha ^2Y^22Y^3E_b4A^2.$$

###### Proof.

If $`\rho (X)>0`$, $`W(X,.)`$ is a $`C^1`$ function by the Sobolev Embedding theorem and the boundary conditions imply that $`W(X,0)=W_0(X)`$ and $`W_Y(X,0)=\alpha `$. Consequently, for such an $`X`$,

$$W(X,Y)=W_0(X)+\alpha Y+_0^YW_{YY}(X,\xi )(Y\xi )𝑑\xi .$$

We will estimate $`W^2(X,Y)`$ from this equation using the elementary inequalities

$$|ab|^2(1\delta )|a|^2\frac{1\delta }{\delta }|b|^2,$$

and

$$|a+b|^2(1+\delta )|a|^2+\frac{1+\delta }{\delta }|b|^2,$$

for all $`\delta >0`$. By our hypothesis on the boundary conditions,

$$|W_0(X)|^2A^2.$$

By Jensen’s inequality

$`\left({\displaystyle _0^Y}W_{YY}(X,\xi )(Y\xi )𝑑\xi \right)^2`$ $``$ $`Y{\displaystyle _0^Y}W_{YY}^2(X,\xi )(Y\xi )^2𝑑\xi `$
$``$ $`Y^3{\displaystyle _0^Y}W_{YY}^2(X,\xi )𝑑\xi `$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Y^3}{\rho (X)}}`$
Combining these estimates, we get

$$W^2(X,Y)(1\delta _1)\alpha ^2Y^2\frac{1\delta _1}{\delta _1}\left[(1+\delta _2)\frac{Y^3}{\rho (X)}+\frac{1+\delta _2}{\delta _2}A^2\right],$$

for all positive $`\delta _1`$ and $`\delta _2`$. In particular, setting $`\delta _1=1/2`$ and $`\delta _2=1`$ yields

$$W^2(X,Y)\frac{1}{2}\alpha ^2Y^2\frac{2Y^3}{\rho (X)}2A^2.$$
(4)
Integrating this inequality in $`X`$ we obtain

$$W_Y^2\alpha ^2Y^22Y^3E_b4A^2,$$
(5)
proving the lemma. ∎

Our proof is based on demonstrating that a small bending energy $`E_b`$ will lead to a large stretching energy. This idea is quantified by the following lemma where we use Eq. (5) to estimate the stretching energy $`E_s`$ from below in terms of the bending energy $`E_b`$.

###### Lemma 3.3.

Let

$$\mu =\left(\frac{4E_bA}{\alpha ^3}\right)^2.$$

There is a constant $`\mu ^{}>0`$ such that, if $`\mu <\mu ^{}`$, the stretching energy $`E_s`$ satisfies

$$E_s\frac{\alpha ^{14}}{5729E_b^5}.$$

###### Proof.

We have,

$$\tau (Y)=W_X_Y^2\frac{\pi ^2}{4}W_Y^2,$$

by the Poincare Inequality. Eq. (5) now yields

$$\tau (Y)\frac{\pi ^2}{4}\left[\alpha ^2Y^22Y^3E_b4A^2\right].$$

We will now extract the appropriate scaling dependence of $`\tau (Y)`$ and $`E_s`$ on $`\alpha `$ and $`E_b`$. Setting $`\alpha ^2Y^2=2Y^3E_b`$, we deduce that a characteristic scale $`\stackrel{~}{Y}`$ for $`Y`$ is given by

$$\stackrel{~}{Y}=\frac{\alpha ^2}{2E_b}.$$

Rescaling $`Y`$ in terms of $`\stackrel{~}{Y}`$, we obtain

$$\tau (Y)\frac{\alpha ^6\pi ^2}{16E_b^2}\left[\left(\frac{Y}{\stackrel{~}{Y}}\right)^2\left(1\frac{Y}{\stackrel{~}{Y}}\right)\mu \right],$$

where $`\mu `$ is as defined above, i.e.

$$\mu =\left(\frac{4E_bA}{\alpha ^3}\right)^2.$$

Making the change of variables $`Y=z\stackrel{~}{Y}`$, and using $`\tau (Y)0`$, we see that

$$E_s_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{2}[\tau (Y)]^2𝑑Y\frac{\pi ^4\alpha ^{14}K(\mu )}{512E_b^5},$$

where

$$K(\mu )=_0^1\left[\mathrm{max}(z^2(1z)\mu ,0)\right]^2𝑑z.$$

$`K(\mu )`$ is clearly a continuous function of $`\mu `$ and $`K(0)=1/105`$. Since $`\pi ^4K(0)/512>1/(5729)`$, there is an $`\mu ^{}>0`$ such that for all $`\mu <\mu ^{}`$, $`\pi ^4K(\mu )/512>1/(5729)`$. The lemma follows. ∎

We can now prove the theorem.

###### Proof.

Let $`b=\frac{5}{8}\sqrt{\mu ^{}}`$. The hypothesis imply

$$A<\frac{5}{8}\sqrt{\mu ^{}}\alpha ^{2/3}.$$

If $`E_b2\alpha ^{7/3}/5`$, there is nothing to prove. Therefore, we can assume that $`E_b<2\alpha ^{7/3}/5`$. Then, it follows that

$$\mu =\left(\frac{4E_bA}{\alpha ^3}\right)^2<\mu ^{}.$$

Consequently $`E_s\alpha ^{14}/(5729E_b^5)`$. Minimizing $`E_s+E_b`$, we see that

$$IE_s+E_b\frac{\alpha ^{14}}{5729E_b^5}+E_b\frac{2\alpha ^{7/3}}{5}.$$

The theorem follows by “undoing” our rescaling to express the results in terms of $`u,v,w,a`$ and $``$. ∎

###### Remark.

In the appendix, we show that

$$K(\mu )\frac{1}{105}\frac{\mu }{6}.$$

Therefore, we can choose $`\mu ^{}=0.048`$ and $`b=0.13`$. We see that $`b`$ is not exceedingly small. Rather it is $`O(1)`$. Also, it is not the best constant for this theorem, and we can get a better value by optimizing our choices for the constants ($`\delta _1`$ and $`\delta _2`$ which we set to be $`1/2`$ and $`1`$ respectively).

## 4 Discussion

We have proved a rigorous lower bound for the elastic energy of a ridge that is consistent with the results obtained by Lobkovsky et al using scaling arguments, and by Lobkovsky  using matched asymptotics. In order to prove these scaling laws rigorously, we also need analogous upper bounds that are consistent with the same scaling. This approach has been used successfully for a variety of other variational problems . The upper bound is usually obtained by constructing a test solution that yields the bound. One is often guided by scaling arguments in the construction of the appropriate test solution. This is in contrast to the lower bounds, where one needs to obtain functional analysis type inequalities that captures the competition between distinct energies in the problem (e.g. lemma 3.3). It is this competition that determines the scaling behavior of the problem.

We have not constructed the upper bounds, because we believe that they will follow from the scaling ansatz in Lobkovsky’s work . We also believe that the upper bound will scale in the same manner as the lower bound, thereby giving us a rigorous scaling law for the energy of a single ridge.

As we remark before proving the theorem, our result is not directly applicable to the minimal ridge since we have the extra hypothesis

$$ab\sigma ^{2/3}\alpha ^{7/3}L^{1/3},$$

We need to replace this restriction with a free boundary condition at $`y=0`$ subject to the symmetry requirement $`w\mathrm{tan}\alpha +v=0`$, and the boundary condition $`w_y=v_y\mathrm{tan}\alpha `$.

Despite this caveat, we claim that the analysis in this paper captures the essential features of the minimal ridge problem, namely the scaling in lemma 3.3, and consequently the scaling law for the energy of the ridge. We will show that this is indeed the case by investigating the problem with the “true” boundary conditions elsewhere.

A harder problem is to show that the scaling laws also hold for a real crumpled sheet, where the forcing is not through clamping the boundaries to a frame, but rather through the confinement in a small volume. In this case, there are interesting global geometric and topological considerations, some of which are explored in Refs.  and . As Lobkovsky and Witten  argue, the boundary condition that the deformation goes to zero far away from the ridge implies that the ridges do not interact with each other significantly. The ridges can be considered the elementary excitations of a crumpled sheet. In our quest for upper and lower bounds, this translates to the statement that the test solutions for the upper bound can be constructed by piecing together local solutions near each ridge. Thus the upper bound is obtained relatively easily. The hard part is to show that the confinement actually leads to the formation of ridges, and that the competition between the bending and the stretching energy for this situation has the same form as in lemma 3.3. In this context, we expect that global topological considerations, as well as the non self-intersection of the sheet will play a key role in the analysis, as they do in the analysis of elastic rods (one dimensional objects) .

As we note above, the blistering problem is described by the same elastic energy (Eq. (1)), but with different boundary conditions. Our results show an interesting contrast with results for the blistering problem. Ben Belgacem et al. have shown that , for an isotropically compressed thin film, the energy of the minimizer satisfies

$$c\lambda ^{3/2}\sigma LC\lambda ^{3/2}\sigma L,$$

where $`L`$ is a typical length scale of the domain, and $`\lambda `$ is the compression factor. A construction for the upper bound strongly suggests that the minimizers develop an infinitely branched network with oscillations on increasingly finer scales as $`\sigma 0`$. In contrast, our results indicate that the energy of a minimal ridge satisfies

$$c\sigma ^{5/3}L^{1/3}C\sigma ^{5/3}L^{1/3},$$

and the energy concentrates in a region of width $`\sigma ^{1/3}L^{2/3}`$. This shows that the nature of the solution of the variational problem for the elastic energy in (1) depends very strongly on the boundary conditions. In particular the very nature of the energy minimizers is different for the two problems – For the blistering problems, as $`\sigma 0`$ the minimizers develop a branched network of folds refining towards the boundary. The minimizers therefore display the problem of small scale oscillations . The minimal ridge problem on the other hand displays the concentration phenomenon  as $`\sigma 0`$, with the energy concentrating on a region of width $`\sigma ^{1/3}L^{2/3}`$. It would be interesting to explore this issue further, and in particular, to understand the mechanisms by which the boundary conditions determine the nature of the minimizer.

## Appendix

In this appendix, we prove the inequality

$$K(\mu )=_0^1\left[\mathrm{max}(z^2(1z)\mu ,0)\right]^2𝑑z\frac{1}{105}\frac{\mu }{6}.$$

###### Proof.

Let $`f0`$. Then, for $`f\mu `$, we have

$$\left[\mathrm{max}(f\mu ,0)\right]^2=f^22\mu f+\mu ^2f^22\mu f.$$

For $`0f\mu `$, we have

$$\left[\mathrm{max}(f\mu ,0)\right]^2=0f^22\mu f.$$

Using these inequalities in the definition of $`K(\mu )`$ we obtain

$$K(\mu )_0^1\left[z^2(1z)\right]^22\mu z^2(1z)dz\frac{1}{105}\frac{\mu }{6}.$$

I wish to thank Brian DiDonna, Bob Kohn, L. Mahadevan, Stefan Müller and Tom Witten for helpful and enlightening conversations. This work was started during a visit to the Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig, and I would like to thank the MPI for their hospitality. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation through its MRSEC program under Award Number DMR-9808595, and by a NSF CAREER Award DMS-0135078. This work is also supported in part by a Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Foundation.

## References


text:
# Moments of Isovector Quark Distributions in Lattice QCD

## 1 Introduction

Until recently, state of the art studies latt  of the moments of parton distributions within lattice QCD have led to large discrepancies with experimental data param . Lattice calculations are performed at quark masses much greater than those of the physical light quarks. Consequently, an extrapolation to the physical mass regime must be made in order to compare with experiment. A naive linear extrapolation results in values for the first three non-trivial moments of the unpolarised $`ud`$ distribution that are 50% above the phenomenological values param . For the polarised distributions the results are no better; $`g_A`$ (the 0th moment of $`\mathrm{\Delta }u\mathrm{\Delta }d`$) is significantly underestimated by a linear extrapolation, while the lack of accuracy in the data (both experimental and lattice) on higher moments precludes definitive statements. Such a large disagreement in such basic hadronic observables casts doubt on the current reliability of the lattice approach to hadronic physics.

We present an improved extrapolation scheme DMNRT ; DMT ; DMT2 ; WDThesis  that for the first time resolves much of this discrepancy. Using constraints from chiral symmetry and the heavy quark limit, we develop a formalism for the extrapolation of the moments of the isovector, unpolarised, helicity and transveristy distributions. These are related to the forward nucleon matrix elements of various twist-2 operators which are calculated on the lattice through the operator product expansion. In particular we find that contributions from intermediate states involving the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ isobar are large, and their effects cannot be ignored in any quantitative analysis. With their inclusion, we are able to make reliable, almost model-independent111Results are independent of the shape of the pion-nucleon form factor to 1-2% Ross . extrapolations of the moments of parton distributions and make predictions for the low spin transversity moments which can be tested by future measurements.

## 2 Pion-Loop Renormalisation of Moments of Parton Distribution Functions

General constraints from the approximate chiral symmetry of QCD lead to the appearance of non-analytic terms in the quark mass expansion of many hadronic quantities. In particular, the moments of quark distributions behave as TMS ; CHPT

$$x^n_{q,\mathrm{\Delta }q,\delta q}m_\pi ^2\mathrm{log}m_\pi ^2,$$
(1)
where the Gell-Mann–Oakes–Renner relation, $`m_qm_\pi ^2`$, has been used to express the quark mass in terms of the pion mass. This behaviour arises from the infrared properties of the one-pion loop renormalisation of the matrix elements of the corresponding twist-2 operators $`𝒪_{q,\mathrm{\Delta }q,\delta q}`$ (see Ref. DMT2  for their definitions and further details). That is,

$$N|𝒪_i^{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _n}|N_{\mathrm{dressed}}=\frac{Z_2}{Z_i}N|𝒪_i^{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _n}|N_{\mathrm{bare}},$$
(2)
where $`Z_2`$ is the nucleon wavefunction renormalisation and $`Z_i`$, $`i=q,\mathrm{\Delta }q,\delta q`$, are the operator renormalisations arising from $`\pi N`$, $`\pi \mathrm{\Delta }`$, and $`\pi (N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ transition) intermediate states.

In the case of the unpolarised moments, simple one-loop calculations of the renormalisation using a variety of form factors (cutoff, monopole, dipole) for the pion–nucleon coupling all lead to a simple extrapolation formula

$$x^n_{ud}=a_n\left(1+c_{\mathrm{LNA}}m_\pi ^2\mathrm{log}\frac{m_\pi ^2}{m_\pi ^2+\mu ^2}\right)+b_nm_\pi ^2,$$
(3)
with three free parameters, $`a_n`$, $`b_n`$, $`\mu `$ ($`c_{\mathrm{LNA}}`$ is fixed by chiral perturbation theory). Similar expressions are found for the helicity and transversity moments in Ref. DMT2 . The parameter $`\mu `$ describes the physical scale of the pion source Detmold:2001hq  and ideally would be constrained by lattice data. However, until sufficiently accurate lattice data at low quark masses are available, alternative methods (such as the one used here) must be used to fix $`\mu `$.

As shown by the solid curves in Fig. 1 this formula provides an excellent description of the lattice data, the experimental values of the moments and (with suitable modification – see Ref. DMT ) the values known in the heavy quark limit. However, when a similar formula is applied to the moments of the helicity distributions, the extrapolation is considerably worse than a naive linear extrapolation, as shown by the dashed lines in Fig. 2.

When we turn to the moments of polarised parton distributions, there is considerable evidence from phenomenological models that suggests the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance will play an important role. Although the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ contributions formally enter at higher order in $`m_\pi `$, the coefficients of these next-to-leading non-analytic terms are large, and they cannot be ignored in any quantitative analysis. This is clearly demonstrated by Fig. 3 where the pion mass dependence of the one-loop renormalisation of helicity matrix elements is shown calculated with a dipole form factor with varying values of the $`\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ coupling, $`g_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}`$. Full details are given in Ref. DMT2 . For these helicity (and transversity) operator matrix elements the difference between $`g_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}/g_{\pi NN}=0`$ (no $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) and $`g_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}/g_{\pi NN}=2`$ (phenomenological value) is up to 15% — much greater than in the unpolarised case where the overall effect is less than 2% over the entire mass range studied here.

In order to incorporate these effects into the extrapolations of lattice data, we calculate the required renormalisations for the phenomenologically preferred dipole parameter, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.8`$ GeV, and for varying values of the coupling ratio $`g_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}/g_{\pi NN}`$. We then determine $`\mu `$ by fitting to the calculated renormalisations using Eq. (3) (with $`c_{\mathrm{LNA}}`$ calculated in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }M=M_\mathrm{\Delta }M_N0`$ limit). With $`\mu `$ thus fixed, we then use the lattice data to determine the fit parameters $`a_n`$ and $`b_n`$. The resulting curves are then shown in each panel of Fig. 2 for $`g_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}/g_{\pi NN}=0`$ (no $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$), $`\sqrt{72/25}`$, 1.85 and 2.222Reasonable variation of the strength of the Weinberg-Tomozawa contact term is also included – see Ref. DMT2  for details.

Table 1 shows the resulting extrapolated values along with uncertainties resulting from the $`\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and Weinberg-Tomozawa couplings, statistical and (estimated) systematic errors. Also listed are the experimental moments where known param . It is evident that the agreement between the experimental and extrapolated results is very good for the unpolarised moments, but significantly worse in the helicity sector. The extrapolated value of $`g_A`$ is 10% below its experimental value, with 8% errors. However, there is some evidence that lattice simulations of this quantity are particularly susceptible to finite volume effects Sasaki:2001th . For the higher helicity moments, statistical errors on the lattice data are not yet sufficiently small to make definitive statements. Since the renormalisation of the transversity matrix elements is almost identical to that of the helicity matrix elements, we are also able to make an estimate of the values of these moments which can be compared with future experimental determinations.

## 3 Conclusion

We have investigated the extrapolation of lattice data on the low moments of the isovector, unpolarised, helicity and transversity parton distribution functions. In the case of the polarised moments, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ isobar, even though not leading non-analytic, was found to play a significant role and its inclusion in the operator renormalisation and extrapolation procedure is vital. With this accounted for, we have the surprising result that the effect of the non-analytic behavior is strongly suppressed for the polarised moments, and a naive linear extrapolation of the moments provides quite a good approximation to the more accurate form.

Talk given by W. D. who is grateful to R. Alkofer and the Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Tübingen for their hospitality and to DFG grant Al279/3-3 for support. W.M. is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy contract DE-AC05-84ER40150, under which the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab).