Search

We discuss production of $D^0$ and ${\bar D}^0$ mesons in proton-nucleus collisions in fixed target experiments. We include gluon-gluon fusion, intrinsic charm and perturbative recombination. We compare rapidity and transverse momentum distributions obtained within our approach with recent fixed target LHCb experimental data. All the mechanisms seem important for inclusive production of $D^0 + {\bar D}^0$ mesons. The recombination mechanism seems crucial to understand asymmetry in production of $D^0$ and ${\bar D}^0$ mesons., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, talk given by A. Szczurek at 42nd International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP2024), 18-24 July 2024, Prague, Czech Republic

Recent results indicate that charm quarks are intrinsic components of the proton wave function, and that the charm and anticharm distributions for a given value of the Bjorken - $x$ variable can be different. In this paper, we will investigate the impact of this asymmetric intrinsic charm on the production of $D^0$ and ${\bar D}^0$ mesons for fixed target $p \!+ ^{20}\!\!Ne$ collisions at the LHCb. In our calculations, we include the contribution of the gluon-gluon fusion, gluon - charm and recombination processes and assume distinct models for the treatment of the intrinsic charm component. We demonstrate that the presence of an intrinsic charm improves the description of the current data for the rapidity and transverse momentum distributions of $D$ mesons. However, such models are not able to describe the LHCb data for the $D^0$-${\bar D}^0$ asymmetry at large transverse momentum, which point out that the description of the intrinsic charm needs to be improved and/or new effects should be taken into account in the production of heavy mesons at forward rapidities in fixed - target collisions., Comment: 23 pages, 11 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2206.02750

I present possible future studies of light-by-light scattering using FoCal@ALICE and ALICE 3 detectors. Different mechanisms are discussed. The PbPb$\to$PbPb$\gamma \gamma$ cross section is calculated within equivalent photon approximation in the impact parameter space. Several differential distributions are presented and discussed. We predict cross section in the (mb-b) range for typical ALICE 3 cuts, a few orders of magnitude larger than for the current ATLAS or CMS experiments. We also consider the two-$\pi^0$ background which can, in principle, be eliminated at the new kinematical range for the ALICE 3 measurements by imposing dedicated cuts on diphoton transverse momentum and$\slash$or so-called vector asymmetry., Comment: 9 pages, Presented at UPC2023: International workshop on the physics of Ultra Peripheral Collisions, Playa del Carmen, Mexico, 10-15.12.2023

We discuss the diffractive bremsstrahlung of a single photon in the $pp \to pp \gamma$ reaction at LHC energies and at forward photon rapidities. We compare the results for our standard approach, based on QFT and the tensor-Pomeron model, with two versions of soft-photon approximations, SPA1 and SPA2, where the radiative amplitudes contain only the leading terms proportional to $\omega^{-1}$ (the inverse of the photon energy). SPA1, which does not have the correct energy-momentum relations, performs surprisingly well in the kinematic range considered, namely at very forward photon rapidities and $0.02 < \xi_{1,2} < 0.1$, the relative energy loss of the protons, corresponding to small values of the photon transverse momentum. Azimuthal correlations between outgoing particles are presented. We discuss also the role of the $p p \to p p \pi^0$ background for single photon production. We discuss also the possibility of a measurement of the $pp \to pp \gamma \gamma$ reaction. Our predictions can be verified by ATLAS-LHCf combined experiments., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, presented by A. Szczurek at XXX Cracow EPIPHANY Conference on Precision Physics at High Energy Colliders, Krakow, Poland, January 8-12, 2024

We calculate several differential distributions for diffractive dijets production in $e p \to e' {\rm jet \, jet} p$ in the pQCD dipole approach using off diagonal unintegrated gluon distributions (GTMDs). Different models from the literature are used. We concentrate on the contribution from exclusive $q \bar q$ dijets. Results of our calculations are compared to H1 and ZEUS data, including specific experimental cuts in our calculations. In general, except of one GTMD, our results are below the HERA data. The considered mechanism is expected to gives a sizeable contribution to the ZEUS data, while it is negligible in the kinematics of the H1 measurement. This is in contrast to recent results from the literature where the normalization was adjusted to some selected distributions of H1 collaboration and no agreement with other observables was checked. The ZEUS data provide stricter limitations on the GTMDs than the H1 data. We conclude, based on comparison to different observables, that the calculated cross sections are only a small fraction of the measured ones which contain probably also processes with pomeron remnant. Alternatively the experimental data could be explained by inclusion of $q \bar q g$ component. We present also azimuthal correlations between the sum and the difference of dijet transverse momenta. The cuts on transverse momenta of jets generate corresponding azimuthal correlations which can be misidentified as due to elliptic gluon distributions., Comment: 16 pages, 18 figures, 2 tables

We continue our work on the light-front formulation of quarkonium $\gamma^* \gamma$ transition form factors, extending the formalism to $J^{PC} = 2^{++}$ tensor meson states. We present an analysis of $\gamma^* \gamma \to \chi_{c2}$ transition amplitude and the pertinent helicity form factors. Our relativistic formalism is based on the light-front quark-antiquark wave function of the quarkonium. We calculate the two-photon decay width as well as three independent $\gamma^* \gamma$ transition form factors for $J_z = 0,1,2$ as a function of photon virtuality $Q^2$. We compare our results for the two-photon decay width to the recently measured ones by the Belle and BES III collaborations. Even when including relativistic corrections, a very small $\Gamma(\lambda = 0)/\Gamma(\lambda = 2)\sim10^{-3}$ ratio is found which is beyond present experimental precision. We also present the form factors as a function of photon virtuality and compare them to the sparse experimental data on the so-called off-shell width. The formalism presented here can be used for other $2^{++}$ mesons, excited charmonia or bottomonia or even light $q \bar q$-mesons., Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables

De novo drug design requires simultaneously generating novel molecules outside of training data and predicting their target properties, making it a hard task for generative models. To address this, we propose Joint Transformer that combines a Transformer decoder, Transformer encoder, and a predictor in a joint generative model with shared weights. We formulate a probabilistic black-box optimization algorithm that employs Joint Transformer to generate novel molecules with improved target properties and outperforms other SMILES-based optimization methods in de novo drug design., Comment: Accepted to NeurIPS 2023 Generative AI and Biology Workshop

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) emerge as promising agents against antimicrobial resistance, providing an alternative to conventional antibiotics. Artificial intelligence (AI) revolutionized AMP discovery through both discrimination and generation approaches. The discriminators aid the identification of promising candidates by predicting key peptide properties such as activity and toxicity, while the generators learn the distribution over peptides and enable sampling novel AMP candidates, either de novo, or as analogues of a prototype peptide. Moreover, the controlled generation of AMPs with desired properties is achieved by discriminator-guided filtering, positive-only learning, latent space sampling, as well as conditional and optimized generation. Here we review recent achievements in AI-driven AMP discovery, highlighting the most exciting directions.

We discuss possible future studies of photon-photon (light-by-light) scattering using a planned FoCal and ALICE 3 detectors. We include different mechanisms of $\gamma\gamma\to\gamma\gamma$ scattering, such as double-hadronic photon fluctuations, $t/u$-channel neutral pion exchange or resonance excitations ($\gamma \gamma \to R$) and deexcitation ($R \to \gamma \gamma$). The broad range of (pseudo)rapidities and lower cuts on transverse momenta open a necessity to consider not only dominant box contributions but also other subleading contributions. Here we include low mass resonant $R = \pi^0$, $\eta$, $\eta'$ contributions. The resonance contributions give intermediate photon transverse momenta. However, these contributions can be eliminated by imposing windows on di-photon invariant mass. We study and quantify individual box contributions (leptonic, quarkish). The electron/positron boxes dominate at low $M_{\gamma \gamma}<1$ GeV di-photon invariant masses. The PbPb$\to$PbPb$\gamma \gamma$ cross section is calculated within equivalent photon approximation in the impact parameter space. Several differential distributions are presented and discussed. We consider four different kinematic regions. We predict cross section in the (mb-b) range for typical ALICE 3 cuts, a few orders of magnitude larger than for the current ATLAS or CMS experiments. We also consider the two-$\pi^0$ background which can, in principle, be eliminated at the new kinematical range for the ALICE 3 measurements by imposing dedicated cuts on di-photon transverse momentum and\or so-called vector asymmetry., Comment: 20 pages, 19 Figures, 3 Tables; misprint corrected, 2 figures added

We study the exclusive diffractive $c \bar c$ photoproduction in ultraperipheral $pA$ collisions. The formalism makes use of off-diagonal generalizations of the unintegrated gluon distribution, the so-called generalized transverse momentum dependent distributions (GTMDs). We present two different formulations. The first one is based directly on gluon GTMD parametrizations in momentum space. Another option is the calculation of the GTMD as a Fourier transform of the dipole-nucleon scattering amplitude $N(Y,\vec{r}_{\perp},\vec{b}_{\perp})$. The latter approach requires some extra regularization discussed in the paper. Different dipole amplitudes from the literature are used. Compared to previous calculations in the literature, we integrate over the full phase space and therefore cross sections for realistic conditions are obtained. We present distributions in rapidity of $c$ or $\bar c$, transverse momentum of the $c \bar c$ pair, four-momentum transfer squared as well as the azimuthal correlation between a sum and a difference of the $c$ and $\bar c$ transverse momenta. The azimuthal correlations are partially due to the so-called elliptic gluon Wigner distribution. Different models lead to different modulations in the azimuthal angle. The modulations are generally smaller than 5%. They depend on the range of transverse momentum selected for the calculation., Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures, 1 table

We investigate the photon emission in pion-pion and pion-proton scattering in the soft-photon limit where the photon energy $\omega \to 0$. The expansions of the $\pi^{-} \pi^{0} \to \pi^{-} \pi^{0} \gamma$ and the $\pi^{\pm} p \to \pi^{\pm} p \gamma$ amplitudes, satisfying the energy-momentum relations, to the orders $\omega^{-1}$ and $\omega^{0}$ are derived. We show that these terms can be expressed completely in terms of the on-shell amplitudes for $\pi^{-} \pi^{0} \to \pi^{-} \pi^{0}$ and $\pi^{\pm} p \to \pi^{\pm} p$, respectively, and their partial derivatives with respect to $s$ and $t$. The~structure term which is non singular for $\omega \to 0$ is determined to the order $\omega^{0}$ from the gauge-invariance constraint using the generalized Ward identities for pions and the proton. For the reaction $\pi^{-} \pi^{0} \to \pi^{-} \pi^{0} \gamma$ we discuss in detail the soft-photon theorems in the versions of both F.E. Low and S. Weinberg. We show that these two versions are different and must not be confounded. Weinberg's version gives the pole term of a Laurent expansion in $\omega$ of the amplitude for $\pi^{-} \pi^{0} \to \pi^{-} \pi^{0} \gamma$ around the phase-space point of zero radiation. Low's version gives an approximate expression for the above amplitude at a fixed phase-space point, corresponding to non-zero radiation. Clearly, the leading and next-to-leading terms in theses two approaches must be, and are indeed, different. We show their relation. We also discuss the expansions of differential cross sections for $\pi^{-} \pi^{0} \to \pi^{-} \pi^{0} \gamma$ with respect to $\omega$ for $\omega \to 0$., Comment: 16 pages, 9 figure, v2 contains extended discussion on different versions of soft-photon theorems and added references, v3 is equivalent to the PRD version

We discuss the reactions $\pi p \to \pi p$ and $\pi p \to \pi p \gamma$ from a general quantum field theory (QFT) point of view, describing these reactions in QCD and lowest relevant order of electromagnetism. We consider the pion-proton elastic scattering both off shell and on shell. The on-shell amplitudes for $\pi^{\pm} p \to \pi^{\pm} p$ scattering are described by two invariant amplitudes, while the off-shell amplitudes contain eight invariant amplitudes. We study the photon emission amplitudes in the soft-photon limit where the c.m. photon energy $\omega \to 0$. The Laurent expansion in $\omega$ of the $\pi^{\pm} p \to \pi^{\pm} p \gamma$ amplitudes is considered and the terms of the orders $\omega^{-1}$ and $\omega^{0}$ are derived. These terms can be expressed by the on-shell invariant amplitudes and their partial derivatives with respect to $s$ and~$t$. The pole term $\propto \omega^{-1}$ in the amplitudes corresponds to Weinberg's soft-photon theorem and is well known from the literature. We derive the next-to-leading term $\propto \omega^{0}$ using only rigorous methods of QFT. We give the relation of the Laurent series for $\pi^{0} p \to \pi^{0} p \gamma$ and Low's soft-photon theorem. Our formulas for the amplitudes in the limit $\omega \to 0$ are valid for photon momentum $k$ satisfying $k^{2} \geqslant 0$, $k^{0} = \omega \geqslant 0$, that is, for both real and virtual photons. Here we consider a limit where with $\omega \to 0$ we have also $k^{2} \to 0$. We discuss the behavior of the corresponding cross-sections for $\pi^{-} p \to \pi^{-} p \gamma$ with respect to $\omega$ for $\omega \to 0$. We consider cross sections for unpolarized as well as polarized protons in the initial and final states., Comment: 36 pages, 5 figures, v2 accepted for publication in PRD

One of the main goals of future electron-ion colliders is to improve our understanding of the structure of hadrons. In this letter, we study the exclusive $\eta_c$ production by $\gamma^{*} \gamma$ interactions in $eA$ collisions and demonstrate that future experimental analysis of this process can be used to improve the description of the $\eta_c$ transition form factor. The rapidity, transverse momentum and photon virtuality distributions are estimated considering the energy and target configurations expected to be present at the EIC, EicC and LHeC and assuming different predictions for the light-front wave function of the $\eta_c$ meson. Our results indicate that the electron-ion colliders can be considered an alternative to providing supplementary data to those obtained in $e^- e^+$ colliders., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures

The two-tensor-pomeron model is applied to deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) on a proton. A good description of the DVCS HERA data at small Bjorken-$x$ is achieved due to a sizeable interference of soft and hard pomeron contributions. We present two fits which differ somewhat in the strength of the hard pomeron contribution. We describe, in the same framework, both the low $Q^{2}$ and high $Q^{2}$ regimes and the transition between them. We find that the soft-pomeron contribution is considerable up to $Q^{2} \sim 20$ GeV$^{2}$. The reggeon exchange term is particularly relevant for describing the scattering of a real photon on a proton measured at lower $\gamma p$ energies at FNAL. We find that the ratio of $\gamma^{*} p \to \gamma p$ cross-sections for longitudinally and transversely polarized virtual photons strongly increases with $t$. Our findings may be checked in future lepton-nucleon scattering experiments in the low-$x$ regime, for instance, at a future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) at the BNL and LHeC at the LHC., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, presented by Piotr Lebiedowicz at XXIX Cracow Epiphany Conference on Physics at the Electron-Ion Collider and Future Facilities, Krakow, Poland, January 16-19, 2023

We evaluate the cross section for diffractive bremsstrahlung of a single photon in the $pp \to pp \gamma$ reaction at high energies and at forward photon rapidities. Several differential distributions, for instance, in $y$, $k_{\perp}$ and $\omega$, the rapidity, the absolute value of the transverse momentum, and the energy of the photon, respectively, are presented. We compare the results for our standard approach, based on QFT and the tensor-pomeron model, with two versions of soft-photon-approximations, SPA1 and SPA2, where the radiative amplitudes contain only the leading terms proportional to $\omega^{-1}$. The SPA1, which does not have the correct energy-momentum relations, performs surprisingly well in the kinematic range considered. We discuss also azimuthal correlations between outgoing particles. The azimuthal distributions are not isotropic and are different for our standard model and SPAs. We discuss also the possibility of a measurement of two-photon-bremsstrahlung in the $pp \to pp \gamma \gamma$ reaction. In our calculations we impose a cut on the relative energy loss ($0.02 < \xi_{i} < 0.1$, $i = 1,2$) of the protons where measurements by the ATLAS Forward Proton (AFP) detectors are possible. The AFP requirement for both diffractively scattered protons and one forward photon (measured at LHCf) reduces the cross section for $p p \to p p \gamma$ almost to zero. On the other hand, much less cross-section reduction occurs for $pp \to pp \gamma \gamma$ when photons are emitted in opposite sides of the ATLAS interaction point and can be measured by two different arms of LHCf. For the SPA1 ansatz we find $\sigma(pp \to pp \gamma \gamma) \simeq 0.03$ nb at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV and with the cuts $0.02 < \xi_{i} < 0.1$, $8.5 < y_{3} < 9$, $-9 < y_{4} < -8.5$. Our predictions can be verified by ATLAS and LHCf combined experiments., Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures. In v2 we discussed the role of the $p p \to p p \pi^0$ background for single photon production

We propose to study the structure of the enigmatic $\chi_{c1}(3872)$ axial vector meson through its $\gamma^*_L \gamma \to \chi_{c1}(3872)$ transition form factor. We derive a light-front wave function representation of the form factor for the lowest $c \bar c$ Fock-state. We found that the reduced width of the state is well within the current experimental bound recently published by the Belle collaboration. This strongly suggests a crucial role of the $c \bar c$ Fock-state in the photon-induced production. Our results for the $Q^2$ dependence can be tested by future single tagged $e^+ e^-$ experiments, giving further insights into the short-distance structure of this meson., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

We discuss central-exclusive production (CEP) of photons via different fusion processes in the reaction $pp \to pp \gamma$ at high energies, available at RHIC and LHC, within the tensor-pomeron model. We consider two types of processes, the photoproduction contribution via the photon-pomeron and photon-reggeon fusion reactions, and the purely diffractive contribution via the reggeon-pomeron and odderon-pomeron fusion reactions. We present predictions for the measurements of photons at midrapidity, $|{\rm y}| < 2.5$, and at relatively low transverse momentum, $0.1~{\rm GeV} < k_{\perp} < 1~{\rm GeV}$. To check the main results of our study the measurement of the outgoing protons is not necessary. This is of relevance, e.g., for the present version of the ALICE detector at the LHC. Several differential distributions, for instance, in ${\rm y}$, $k_{\perp}$ and $\omega$, the rapidity, the absolute value of the transverse momentum, and the energy of the photon, respectively, are presented. We show that the photoproduction is an important process in the kinematic region specified above. There it gives a much larger cross section than diffractive bremsstrahlung. This is remarkable as the CEP cross section is of order $\alpha_{\rm em}^{3}$ whereas the bremsstrahlung one is only of order $\alpha_{\rm em}$. On the other hand, the soft-photon bremsstrahlung where the basic $pp \to pp$ reaction is due to strong interaction diffraction is more important than CEP in the forward rapidity range, $|{\rm y}| > 4$, and/or at very low $k_{\perp}$. We leave it as a challenge for the planned ALICE 3 experiment at the LHC to study these two contributions to soft photon production in $pp$ collisions. This could shed new light on the so called ``soft photon puzzle'' in hadron-hadron collisions., Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures

We discuss production of far-forward $D$ mesons/antimesons and neutrinos/antineutrinos from their semileptonic decays in pp-collisions at the LHC. We include the gluon-gluon fusion $gg \to c\bar{c}$, the intrinsic charm (IC) $gc \to gc$ as well as the recombination $gq \to Dc$ partonic mechanisms. The calculations are performed within the $k_T$-factorization approach and the hybrid model using different unintegrated parton distribution functions (uPDFs) for gluons from the literature, as well as within the collinear approach. We compare our results to the LHCb data for forward $D^{0}$-meson production at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV for different rapidity bins in the interval $2 < y < 4.5$. The IC and recombination models are negligible at the LHCb kinematics. Both the mechanisms start to be crucial at larger rapidities and dominate over the standard charm production mechanisms. At high energies there are so far no experiments probing this region. We present also energy distributions for forward electron, muon and tau neutrinos to be measured at the LHC by the currently operating FASER$\nu$ experiment, as well as by future experiments like FASER$\nu2$ or FLArE, proposed very recently by the Forward Physics Facility project. Again components of different mechanisms are shown separately. For all kinds of neutrinos (electron, muon, tau) the subleading contributions, i.e. the IC and/or the recombination, dominate over light meson (pion, kaon) and the standard charm production contribution driven by fusion of gluons for neutrino energies $E_{\nu} \gtrsim 300$ GeV. For electron and muon neutrinos both the mechanisms lead to a similar production rates and their separation seems rather impossible. On the other hand, for $\nu_{\tau} + {\bar \nu}_{\tau}$ neutrino flux the recombination is further reduced making the measurement of the IC contribution very attractive., Comment: 26 pages, 16 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2206.02750

We calculate the differential cross section $d\sigma/dt$ for the diffractive photoproduction process $\gamma p \to \rho p$ and compare to recent data extracted by the CMS collaboration from ultraperipheral proton-lead collisions. Our model is based on two-gluon exchange in the nonperturbative domain. We take into account both helicity conserving and often neglected helicity-flip amplitudes in the $\gamma \to V$ transition. The letter can contribute at finite $t$. The shape of the differential cross section as well as the role of helicity flip processes is strongly related to the dependence of the unintegrated gluon distribution on transverse momenta in the nonperturbative region., Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures

The two-tensor-pomeron model proposed previously to describe low $x$ DIS data is applied to real and virtual Compton scattering on a proton. The model includes two tensor pomerons, a soft and a hard one, and tensor reggeons. We include contributions of both transverse and longitudinal virtual photons. We show that this model gives a very good description of experimental data at small Bjorken $x$ on deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) from HERA. The reggeon exchange term is particularly relevant for describing the real-photon-proton scattering measured at lower $\gamma p$ energies at FNAL. We present two fits which differ somewhat in the strength of the hard pomeron contribution. In both fits we find that the interference between soft- and hard-pomeron exchange plays an important role. We find that in DVCS the soft-pomeron contribution is considerable up to $Q^{2} \sim 20$ GeV$^{2}$. Our model allows to study the transition from the small-$Q^{2}$ regime, including the photoproduction ($Q^{2} = 0$) limit, to the large-$Q^{2}$ regime, the DIS limit. We also discuss the ratio of cross sections for longitudinally and transversely polarized virtual photons in $\gamma^{*} p \to \gamma p$ as a function of $|t|$ and $Q^2$. The ratio $\tilde{R}(Q^{2},W^{2},t) = (d\sigma_{\rm L} / dt) / (d\sigma_{\rm T} / dt)$ strongly increases with $t$. Our findings may be checked in future lepton-nucleon scattering experiments in the low-$x$ regime, for instance, at a future Electron-Ion Collider at the BNL (EIC), and, if LHeC is realized, at the LHC., Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures

We analyze the photon-initiated processes for production of $ e ^ + e ^- $ pairs in proton-nucleus collisions at LHC energy, taking into account both elastic processes and proton dissociations in the low-mass region (LMR) and intermediate-mass region (IMR) as defined by the ALICE collaboration. The calculations are performed within the $k_{\rm T}$-factorisation approach, including transverse momenta of intermediate photons. We discuss several differential distributions in invariant mass of both the leptons $M_{ll}$, pair rapidity $Y_{ll}$ and transverse momenta of the lepton pair $p_{t,ll}$. In addition, we present the two-dimensional distributions in $\log_{10} x_{Bj}$ and $\log_{10} Q^{2}$ and ($\log_{10} W,\log_{10} Q^{2}$) the arguments of the deep-inelastic structure functions. All presented results were obtained with modern parametrizations of proton structure functions. Limiting to small invariant masses of dielectrons one tests structure functions in the nonperturbative region of small $Q^2$ and/or small $W$. We quantify difference for different parametrizations from the literature., Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures

In this work, we perform a detailed study of transition form factors for axial-vector meson production via the two-photon fusion process $\gamma^* \gamma^* \to 1^{++}$, with space-like virtual photons in the initial state and a $P$-wave axial-vector quarkonium in the final state. In this analysis, we employ the formalism of light-front quarkonium wave functions obtained from a solution of the Schr\"odinger equation for a selection of interquark potentials for $Q \bar Q$ interaction. We found the helicity structure and covariant decomposition of the matrix elements that can be generically applied for any $q \bar q$ axial-vector meson $\gamma^* \gamma^* \to 1^{++}$ transition, while our numerical results are given for the phenomenologically relevant charmonium $\chi_{c1}$ state. We present the helicity form factors as functions of both photon virtualities. We also obtain, that $Q F_{\rm LT}(Q^2,0)/F_{\rm TT}(Q^2,0) = {\rm const.}$, Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures

We present a new study on helicity amplitudes and cross sections for the exclusive production of $\rho$ mesons at the EIC in high-energy factorization. In this framework the analytic expression of amplitudes takes the form of a convolution between an off-shell impact factor, depicting the ($\gamma^* \to \rho$) transition, and a nonperturbative density, known as Unintegrated Gluon Distribution (UGD) that encodes information about the proton structure at low $x$ and evolves according to the BFKL equation. We come out with an evidence that observables sensitive to the polarizations of the incoming virtual photon and of the emitted meson allow us to discriminate among different UGD models and to gather quantitative information on the proton content at high energies., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Presented by F.G. Celiberto at DIS2022: XXIX International Workshop on Deep-Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, May 2-6 2022

Recent emergence of high-throughput drug screening assays sparkled an intensive development of machine learning methods, including models for prediction of sensitivity of cancer cell lines to anti-cancer drugs, as well as methods for generation of potential drug candidates. However, a concept of generation of compounds with specific properties and simultaneous modeling of their efficacy against cancer cell lines has not been comprehensively explored. To address this need, we present VADEERS, a Variational Autoencoder-based Drug Efficacy Estimation Recommender System. The generation of compounds is performed by a novel variational autoencoder with a semi-supervised Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) prior. The prior defines a clustering in the latent space, where the clusters are associated with specific drug properties. In addition, VADEERS is equipped with a cell line autoencoder and a sensitivity prediction network. The model combines data for SMILES string representations of anti-cancer drugs, their inhibition profiles against a panel of protein kinases, cell lines biological features and measurements of the sensitivity of the cell lines to the drugs. The evaluated variants of VADEERS achieve a high r=0.87 Pearson correlation between true and predicted drug sensitivity estimates. We train the GMM prior in such a way that the clusters in the latent space correspond to a pre-computed clustering of the drugs by their inhibitory profiles. We show that the learned latent representations and new generated data points accurately reflect the given clustering. In summary, VADEERS offers a comprehensive model of drugs and cell lines properties and relationships between them, as well as a guided generation of novel compounds.

We discuss diffractive processes in proton-proton collisions at small momentum transfers without and with photon radiation. We consider the soft exclusive reactions $pp \to pp$, $p\bar{p} \to p\bar{p}$, and $pp \to pp \gamma$ within the tensor-pomeron and vector-odderon approach. We compare our results with the data for $pp$ and $p\bar{p}$ total cross sections, for the ratio of real to imaginary part of the forward scattering amplitude, and for the elastic $pp$ cross sections, especially those from TOTEM. To describe the low-energy data more accurately the secondary reggeons must be included. We write down the amplitudes for the photon bremsstrahlung in high-energy proton-proton collisions using the tensor-pomeron model. These results are relevant for the c.m. energies presently available at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and at the LHC. We present predictions for the proposed measurements of soft photons with the planned future upgrade of the ALICE experiment at the LHC. We investigate the limits of applicability of the soft-photon approximation (SPA) based on Low's theorem. The corresponding SPA results are compared to those obtained from our complete model. The regions of phase space are given quantitatively where SPA and our complete tensor-pomeron results are close to each other. As an example, let $k_{\perp}$, $\rm y$, and $\omega$, be the absolute value of the transverse momentum, the rapidity, and the energy of the photon, respectively, in the overall c.m. system. For the region $1 \; {\rm MeV} < k_{\perp} < 100 \; {\rm MeV}$ and $3.5 < |\rm y| < 5.0$, we find that the SPA Ansatz with only the pole terms $\propto \omega^{-1}$ agrees at the percent level with our complete model result up to $\omega \cong 2$ GeV., Comment: 44 pages, 18 figures, Comments on the photon radiation in connection with diffractive excitation of the proton were added

We discuss production of neutral $D$ mesons in proton-proton collisions at the LHC (fixed target mode) in the framework of the BJM recombination model. We present rapidity and transverse momentum distributions of $D$ mesons and compare the recombination contribution to the dominant gluon-gluon fusion mechanism. Both the direct production, as dictated by the matrix element, and fragmentation of the associated $c$ or $\bar c$ are included. The latter mechanism generates $D$ mesons with smaller rapidities than those produced directly. We calculate the $D^0 + {\bar D^{0}}$ meson distributions relevant for fixed target $p\!+\!\!^{4}\!H\!e$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 86.6 GeV as well as for $p\!+\!\!^{20}\!N\!e$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 69 GeV. The recombination component is consistent with the LHCb data and in addition results in production asymmetry. The asymmetries in $D^{0}\!-\!\bar{D^{0}}$ production as a function of rapidity and transverse momentum are shown and the cancellation of terms for direct production and associated $c/{\bar c}$ fragmentation is discussed., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2105.09370

We calculate the total cross section and transverse momentum distributions for the production of enigmatic $\chi_{c,1}(3872)$ (or X(3872)) assuming different scenarios: $c \bar c$ state and $D^{0*} {\bar D}^0 + D^0 {\bar D}^{0*}$ molecule. The derivative of the $c \bar c$ wave function needed in the first scenario is taken from a potential model calculations. Compared to earlier calculation of molecular state we include not only single parton scattering (SPS) but also double parton scattering (DPS) contributions. The latter one seems to give smaller contribution than the SPS one. The upper limit for the DPS production of $\chi_{c,1}(3872)$ is much below the CMS data. We compare results of our calculations with existing experimental data of CMS, ATLAS and LHCb collaborations. Reasonable cross sections can be obtained in either $c \bar c$ or molecular $D {\bar D}^*$ scenarios for $X(3872)$. Also a hybrid scenario is not excluded., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, v2: references added, v3: a diagram added, minor changes

High energy collisions at the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (LHC) produce a large number of particles along the beam collision axis, outside of the acceptance of existing LHC experiments. The proposed Forward Physics Facility (FPF), to be located several hundred meters from the ATLAS interaction point and shielded by concrete and rock, will host a suite of experiments to probe Standard Model (SM) processes and search for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). In this report, we review the status of the civil engineering plans and the experiments to explore the diverse physics signals that can be uniquely probed in the forward region. FPF experiments will be sensitive to a broad range of BSM physics through searches for new particle scattering or decay signatures and deviations from SM expectations in high statistics analyses with TeV neutrinos in this low-background environment. High statistics neutrino detection will also provide valuable data for fundamental topics in perturbative and non-perturbative QCD and in weak interactions. Experiments at the FPF will enable synergies between forward particle production at the LHC and astroparticle physics to be exploited. We report here on these physics topics, on infrastructure, detector, and simulation studies, and on future directions to realize the FPF's physics potential., Comment: 429 pages, contribution to Snowmass 2021

We calculate differential cross sections for $c \bar c$- and $b \bar b$-dijet production in $pp$-scattering at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV in the $k_T$-factorization and hybrid approaches with different unintegrated parton distribution functions (uPDFs). We present distributions in transverse momentum and pseudorapidity of the leading jet, rapidity difference between the jets and the dijet invariant mass. Our results are compared to recent LHCb data on forward production of heavy flavour dijets, measured recently for the first time individually for both, charm and bottom flavours. We found that an agreement between the predictions and the data within the full $k_T$-factorization is strongly related to the modelling of the large-$x$ behaviour of the gluon uPDFs which is usually not well constrained. The problem may be avoided following the hybrid factorization approach. Then a good description of the measured distributions is obtained with the Parton-Branching, the Kimber-Martin-Ryskin, the Kutak-Sapeta and the Jung setA0 CCFM gluon uPDFs. We calculate also differential distributions for the ratio of $c \bar c$ and $b \bar b$ cross sections. In all cases we obtain the ratio close to 1 which is caused by the condition on minimal jet transverse momentum ($p_{T}^{\mathrm{jet}} > 20$ GeV) introduced in the experiment, that makes the role of heavy quark mass almost negligible. The LHCb experimental ratio seems a bit larger. We discuss potentially important for the ratio effect of $c$- or $b$-quark gluon radiative corrections related to emission outside of the jet cone. The found effect seems rather small. More refine calculation requires full simulation of $c$- and $b$-jets which goes beyond of the scope of the present paper., Comment: 54 pages, 32 figures

Inclusive as well as exclusive emissions in forward and central directions of rapidity are widely recognized as excellent channels to access the proton structure at small-x. In this regime, to describe nucleons structure, it is necessary to use kT-unintegrated distributions. In particular, at large transverse momenta, the x-evolution of the so-called unintegrated gluon distribution is driven by the Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov equation, within the framework of the high-energy factorization (HEF). Recent analyses on the diffractive electroproduction of \rho mesons have corroborated the underlying assumption that the small-size dipole scattering mechanism is at work, thus validating the use of the HEF formalism. Nonetheless, a significant sensitivity of polarized cross sections to intermediate values of the meson transverse momenta, where, in the case of inclusive emissions, a description at the hand of the transverse momentum dependent (TMD) factorization starts to be the most appropriate framework, has been observed. In this work, we will review the formal description of the UGD within the BFKL approach and present some UGD models that have been proposed, then we will describe the state of the art of some recent phenomenological analyses., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, contribution to the proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Hadron Spectroscopy and Structure in memoriam Simon Eidelman (HADRON2021)

We discuss the mechanism of dilepton production in proton-proton scattering via fusion of virtual photons with identification of one proton on either side. This is relevant for the ATLAS+AFP and CMS+PPS at the LHC. Transverse momenta of the photons are taken into account via photon unintegrated fluxes. The latter ones are expressed in terms of proton electromagnetic form factors and structure functions. We include different categories of such processes (double elastic, single dissociative). Some differential distributions are shown explicitly and differences with respect to the results without proton identification are discussed. A soft gap survival factor is calculated using SuperChic-4 code., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures a talk presented by A. Szczurek at the EPS-HEP 2021 conference, Hamburg, July 26-30 2021

We present a formalism how to calculate differential distributions for dilepton production in semicentral heavy ion collisions. In this new approach, the differential cross section is calculated using the complete polarization density matrix of photons resulting from the Wigner distribution formalism. The formalism is used to calculate different distributions of the invariant mass, dilepton transverse momentum and acoplanarity for different regions of centrality. The results of the calculation are compared with recent experimental data. We also study the contribution from different parts of impact parameter space., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, poster presented by M.KG; The European Physical Society Conference on High Energy Physics (EPS-HEP2021), 26-30 July 2021, Online conference, jointly organized by Universit\"at Hamburg and the research center DESY

The Forward Physics Facility (FPF) is a proposal to create a cavern with the space and infrastructure to support a suite of far-forward experiments at the Large Hadron Collider during the High Luminosity era. Located along the beam collision axis and shielded from the interaction point by at least 100 m of concrete and rock, the FPF will house experiments that will detect particles outside the acceptance of the existing large LHC experiments and will observe rare and exotic processes in an extremely low-background environment. In this work, we summarize the current status of plans for the FPF, including recent progress in civil engineering in identifying promising sites for the FPF and the experiments currently envisioned to realize the FPF's physics potential. We then review the many Standard Model and new physics topics that will be advanced by the FPF, including searches for long-lived particles, probes of dark matter and dark sectors, high-statistics studies of TeV neutrinos of all three flavors, aspects of perturbative and non-perturbative QCD, and high-energy astroparticle physics., Comment: revised version, accepted by Physics Reports