Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
6-2014
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Program
Physics
Advisor
Adrian Dumitru
Subject Categories
Elementary Particles and Fields and String Theory | Nuclear
Keywords
Collisions, High-energy, Initial conditions, Small-x
Abstract
This thesis is focused on the initial stages of high-energy collisions in the saturation regime. We start by extending the McLerran-Venugopalan distribution of color sources in the initial wave-function of nuclei in heavy-ion collisions. We derive a fourth-order operator in the action and discuss its relevance for the description of color charge distributions in protons in high-energy experiments. We calculate the dipole scattering amplitude in proton-proton collisions with the quartic action and find an agreement with experimental data. We also obtain a modification to the fluctuation parameter of the negative binomial distribution of particle multiplicities in proton-proton experiments. The result implies an advancement of the fourth-order action towards Gaussian when the energy is increased. Finally, we calculate perturbatively the expectation value of the magnetic Wilson loop operator in the first moments of heavy-ion collisions. For the magnetic flux we obtain a first non-trivial term that is proportional to the square of the area of the loop. The result is close to numerical calculations for small area loops.
Recommended Citation
Petreska, Elena, "Initial conditions in high-energy collisions" (2014). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/265