Eur. Phys. J. C (2005) 43: 427-435
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s2005-02334-6

Experimental Physics

Future of low-x forward physics at RHIC

¹ Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY 11973, Upton, USA
² University of Berkeley/Space Sciences Institute, CA 94720, Berkeley, USA
³ Pennsylvania State University, PA 16802, University Park, USA
⁴ IHEP, Protvino, Russia
⁵ Texas A&M University, TX 77843, College Station, USA

^* e-mail: bland@bnl.gov

Received: 22 February 2005
Revised: 19 May 2005
Published online: 5 August 2005

Abstract

Comparisons of particle production from high-energy ion collisions with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations show good agreement down to moderate transverse momentum values. Distributions of azimuthal angle differences between coincident hadrons in these collisions support a partonic origin to the particle production, again down to moderate transverse momentum values. The rapidity dependence of inclusive and coincident particle production can therefore be used to probe parton distribution functions down to small momentum fractions where theory anticipates that parton saturation could be present. This paper describes how such experiments could be completed.