Evidence for the maximally entangled low $x$ proton in Deep Inelastic Scattering from H1 data

Abstract

We investigate the proposal by Kharzeev and Levin of a maximally entangled proton wave function in Deep Inelastic Scattering at low $x$ and the proposed relation between parton number and final state hadron multiplicity. Contrary to the original formulation we determine partonic entropy from the sum of gluon and quark distribution functions at low $x$, which we obtain from an unintegrated gluon distribution subject to next-to-leading order Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov evolution. We find for this framework very good agreement with H1 data. We furthermore provide a comparison based on NNPDF parton distribution functions at both next-to-next-to-leading order and next-to-next-to-leading with small $x$ resummation, where the latter provides an acceptable description of data.

Comments: 8 pages. Erratum added. It accounts for correction of scale of gluon and factor accounting for measurement of charged hadrons only. Conclusions unmodified