Eur. Phys. J. C (2010) 66: 137-146
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-009-1225-6

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Testing non-linear evolution with running coupling corrections in ep and pp collisions

¹ Conjunto Agrotécnico Visconde da Graça (CAVG), Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Av. Ildefonso Simes Lopes, 2791, CEP 96060-290, Pelotas, RS, Brazil
² High and Medium Energy Group (GAME), Instituto de Física e Matemática, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Caixa Postal 354, CEP 96010-900, Pelotas, RS, Brazil

^* e-mail: barros@ufpel.edu.br

Received: 20 July 2009
Revised: 8 October 2009
Published online: 11 December 2009

Abstract

Perturbative QCD predicts that the growth of the gluon density at small x (high energies) should saturate, forming a Color Glass Condensate (CGC), which is described in mean field approximation by the Balitsky–Kovchegov (BK) equation. Recently, the next-to-leading order corrections for the BK equation were derived and a global fit of the inclusive ep HERA data was performed, resulting in a parameterization for the forward scattering amplitude. In this paper we compare this parameterization with the predictions of other phenomenological models and investigate the saturation physics in diffractive deep-inelastic electron–proton scattering and in the forward hadron production in pp collisions. Our results demonstrate that the running coupling BK solution is able to describe these observables.