Diffractive electron-nucleus scattering and ancestry in branching random walks
Abstract
We point out an analogy between diffractive electron-nucleus scattering events, and realizations of one-dimensional branching random walks selected according to the height of the genealogical tree of the particles near their boundaries. This correspondence is made transparent in an event-by-event picture of diffraction emphasizing the statistical properties of gluon evolution, from which new quantitative predictions straightforwardly follow: we are able to determine the distribution of the total invariant mass produced diffractively, which is an interesting observable that can potentially be measured at a future electron-ion collider.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1805.09417,
title = {Diffractive electron-nucleus scattering and ancestry in branching random walks},
author = {A. H. Mueller and S. Munier},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.09417},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
5 pages, 3 figures. v2: small additions, in particular a paragraph to discuss the link to DIS phenomenology; version to be published in Phys.Rev.Lett