Inclusive Double Pomeron Exchange at the Fermilab Tevatron pbar-p Collider

TL;DR

This paper investigates inclusive double Pomeron exchange in proton-antiproton collisions at 1800 GeV, providing measurements of the fractional momentum loss distributions and confirming theoretical expectations for the process.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed measurement of inclusive double Pomeron exchange at the Fermilab Tevatron, including the distribution of the proton fractional momentum loss.

Findings

The $\xi_p^X$ distribution follows a $1/(\xi_p^X)^{1.1}$ behavior.

Approximately 19.4% of events exhibit $\xi_p^X<0.02$.

Results support the theoretical model of double Pomeron exchange.

Abstract

We report a study of $\bar p+p\to \bar p+X+Y$ at $\sqrt s=1800$ GeV, where $Y$ is a proton or system of mass-squared $M_Y^2\lesssim 8$ GeV$^2$. In a sample of events with a leading $\bar p$ of fractional momentum loss $0.035<\xi_{\bar p}<0.095$ and 4-momentum transfer squared $|t_{\bar p}|<1.0$ GeV$^2$, the proton fractional momentum loss $\xi_p^X$ to the system $X$ was evaluated from the momenta of the particles comprising $X$. In the region $\xi_p^X<0.02$, the $\xi_p^X$ distribution behaves as $\sim 1/(\xi_p^X)^{1.1}$, as expected for double Pomeron exchange. The fraction of events with $\xi_p^X<0.02$ is found to be $0.194\pm 0.001 {\rm (stat)}\pm 0.012 {\rm (syst)}$.