Leading neutron production at HERA in the color dipole approach

• Main Authors: Carvalho F., Gonçalves V.P., Spiering D., Navarra F.S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2016-01-01
• Series: EPJ Web of Conferences
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201611202010

In this work we study leading neutron production in e + p → e + n + X collisions at high energies and calculate the Feynman xL distribution of these neutrons. The differential cross section is written in terms of the pion flux and of the photon-pion total cross section. We describe this process using the color dipole formalism and, assuming the validity of the additive quark model, we relate the dipole-pion with the well determined dipoleproton cross section. In this formalism we can estimate the impact of the QCD dynamics at high energies as well as the contribution of gluon saturation effects to leading neutron production. With the parameters constrained by other phenomenological information, we are able to reproduce the basic features of the recently released H1 leading neutron spectra.