Diffraction on Nuclei: Effects of Nucleon Correlations

TL;DR

This paper improves the Glauber-Gribov theory for proton-nucleus diffraction by incorporating nucleon correlations, revealing their significant impact on nuclear transparency and diffractive cross sections at collider energies.

Contribution

It introduces a method to include nucleon correlations into the Glauber-Gribov framework, enhancing the accuracy of diffractive process predictions in proton-nucleus scattering.

Findings

Nucleon correlations increase nuclear opacity in diffractive processes.

Gribov corrections tend to make nuclear matter more transparent.

Nucleon correlations significantly affect diffractive cross sections at collider energies.

Abstract

The cross sections for a variety of diffractive processes in proton-nucleus scattering, associated with large gaps in rapidity, are calculated within an improved Glauber-Gribov theory, where the inelastic shadowing corrections are summed to all orders by employing the dipole representation. The effects of nucleon correlations, leading to a modification of the nuclear thickness function, are also taken into account. Numerical calculations are performed for the energies of the HERA-B experiment, and the RHIC and LHC colliders, and for several nuclei. It is found that whereas the Gribov corrections generally make nuclear matter more transparent, nucleon correlations act in the opposite direction and have important effects in various diffractive processes.