The nucleon's gluonic transverse size: From exclusive J/psi photoproduction to high-energy pp collisions

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current understanding of the gluonic transverse size of the nucleon, derived from exclusive J/psi production experiments, and discusses implications for high-energy proton-proton collision processes.

Contribution

It consolidates experimental data on gluon spatial distribution and explores its application to predicting collision cross sections at collider energies.

Findings

Gluon transverse size varies with x in the nucleon.

Experimental data from HERA constrains gluon spatial distribution.

Implications for modeling high-energy p-p and pbar-p collisions.

Abstract

We summarize what is known about the transverse spatial distribution of gluons in the nucleon and its x-dependence from exclusive J/psi photo/electroproduction in e-p fixed-target and collider experiments (HERA H1 and ZEUS). This information can be used to predict the impact parameter dependence of the cross section for certain hard QCD processes (dijet production) in pbar-p and p-p collisions at the Tevatron and LHC.