QCD motivated approach to soft interactions at high energies: nucleus-nucleus and hadron-nucleus collisions

Abstract

In this paper we consider nucleus-nucleus and hadron-nucleus reactions in the kinematic region: $g{A}^{1/3}{G}_{3\text{pom}}\exp \text{Lb}\Delta Y\text{Rb}\approx 1G_{3\text{pom}}^2\exp \text{Lb}\Delta Y\text{Rb}\approx 1$, where $G_{3\text{pom}}$ is the triple Pomeron coupling, $g$ is the vertex of Pomeron nucleon interaction, and 1 + ${\Delta }_{\text{pom}}$ denotes the Pomeron intercept. We find that in this kinematic region the traditional Glauber-Gribov eikonal approach is inadequate. We show that it is necesssary to take into account inelastic Glauber corrections, which can not be expressed in terms of the nucleon-nucleon scattering amplitudes. In the wide range of energies where ${\alpha }_{\text{pom}}^{\prime }Y\ll R_A^2$,the scattering amplitude for the nucleus-nucleus interaction, does not depend on the details of the nucleon-nucleon interaction at high energy. In the formalism we present, the only (correlated) parameters that are required to describe the data are ${\Delta }_{\text{pom}}$, $G_{3\text{pom}}$ and $g$. These parameters were taken from our description of the nucleon-nucleon data at high energies \cite{GLMM}.The predicted nucleus modification factor is compared with RHIC Au-Au data at $W=200GeV.$ Estimates for LHC energies are presented and discusssed.

Comments: 18pp. 14 fugures