From Parton Saturation to Proton Spin: the Impact of BFKL Equation and Reggeon Evolution

TL;DR

This paper reviews the influence of Lipatov's work on high-energy QCD, focusing on parton saturation and proton spin at small x, highlighting the roles of the BFKL equation and Reggeon evolution.

Contribution

It connects Lipatov's foundational contributions to recent advances in understanding parton saturation and proton spin at small x.

Findings

The BFKL equation is crucial for saturation physics.

Reggeon evolution explains small-x proton spin contributions.

Lipatov's work underpins modern high-energy QCD developments.

Abstract

Lev Lipatov was a giant in the field of strong interactions and a dominant force in high-energy QCD for many decades. His work deeply influenced both how we think about QCD and how we perform calculations in the theory. Below we describe the work in two related research directions: the physics of parton saturation and proton spin at small $x$. Both developments would have been impossible without Lipatov's groundbreaking work. Saturation physics would not have happened without the Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL) equation. The recent progress in our theoretical understanding of the proton spin contribution coming from small-$x$ partons started with the seminal paper by Kirschner and Lipatov resumming double logarithms of energy in the Reggeon evolution.