Odderon

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In particle physics, the odderon corresponds to an elusive family of odd-gluon states, dominated by a three-gluon state. When protons collide elastically with protons or with anti-protons at high energies, even or odd numbers of gluons are exchanged. Exchanging an even number of gluons is a crossing-even part of elastic proton–proton and proton–antiproton scattering, while odderon exchange, i.e. exchange of odd number of gluons, corresponds to a crossing-odd term in the elastic scattering amplitude. It took about 48 years to find a definite signal of odderon exchange. [1]

Contents

Description

In elastic collisions the total kinetic energy of the system is conserved thus the identity of the scattered particles is not modified, no excited states and/or new particles are produced. The kinematics of these collisions is governed by the conservation of both energy and momentum. Data on high-energy elastic proton–proton collisions provided by the TOTEM Collaboration in a teraelectronvolt energy range, together with data from the DØ experiment on elastic proton–antiproton collisions at the Tevatron collider were key ingredients in the discovery of the odderon-exchange. The observed characteristics of the proton–proton collisions did not match the characteristics of the proton–antiproton collisions. As a result, there is an interaction-mediating family of particles (Regge trajectory) that can result in such a deviation in the range of strong interactions. The properties of the odderon are summarised below.

Odderon
Family: Hadron
Crossing-odd counterpart: Pomeron
Antiparticle:self
Composition:Odd number of gluons
Symbol:O
Interactions:strong
Occurrence:t-channel exchange in elastic proton–proton and proton–antiproton collisions at high energies
Applications: High energy particle physics
Proposed by: Basarab Nicolescu, Leszek Łukaszuk in October 1973 [2]
Discovered by:

Tamás Csörgő, Tamás Novák, Roman Pasechnik, András Ster and István Szanyi published in June 2020 and in February 2021. Tamás Csörgő and István Szanyi published in July 2021.

and TOTEM Collaborations, published in August 2021 [1]

Discovery

The first paper on the theoretical prediction of possible odderon exchange was published in 1973 by Basarab Nicolescu and Leszek Łukaszuk. [2] The odderon name was coined in 1975 in a paper from the same group (Joynson, D.; Leader, E.; Nicolescu, B. and Lopez, C.) [3]

In December 2020, the DØ and TOTEM Collaborations made public their CERN and Fermilab approved preprint [1] later published in Physical Review Letters in August 2021. [1] The DØ and TOTEM extrapolated TOTEM proton–proton data in the region of the diffractive minimum and maximum from 13, 8, 7 and 2.76 TeV to 1.96 TeV and compared this to DØ proton–antiproton measurement at 1.96 TeV in the same t-range finding an odderon significance of 3.4 σ. TOTEM observed an independent odderon signal at low four-momentum transfers at 13 TeV. When a partial combination of the TOTEM ρ and total cross section measurements is done at 13 TeV, the combined significance ranges between 3.4 and 4.6 σ for the different models. Combining this with the 3.4 σ effect on the extrapolated proton–proton differential cross-sections resulted in an at least 5.2 σ statistical significance. This is the first statistically significant observation of odderon exchange effects by experimental collaborations. [1]

A Hungarian-Swedish scaling analysis introduced a new scaling function and observed, model dependently, that in a limited energy range, that includes the DØ energy of 1.96 TeV and the TOTEM energies of 2.76 and 7 TeV, the elastic proton–proton collisions are within the experimental uncertainties independent of the energy of the collision. [4]

In this model dependently determined domain of validity, the Hungarian-Swedish team utilized a direct data-to-data comparison and showed that energy independent scaling function of elastic proton–proton collisions is significantly different from the scaling function of elastic proton–antiproton collisions, hence providing a statistically significant signal for the exchange of the elusive odderon. The preprint of this analysis was made public in December 2019 and its final form it was published in February 2021. [4]

This paper has been seconded in July 2021 by a theoretical paper of Tamás Csörgő, and István Szanyi, increasing the statistical significance of odderon observation to at least 7.08 σ signal. [5] This paper utilized a previously published theoretical model, the so-called real-extended Bialas-Bzdak model, to extrapolate not only the elastic proton–proton scattering data from the LHC energies to the DØ energy of 1.96 TeV but also to extrapolate the elastic proton–antiproton scattering data from 0.546 and 1.96 TeV to the LHC energies of 2.76 TeV and 7 TeV. Evaluating the proton–proton data with a model increased the uncertainty and decreased the odderon signal from proton–proton scattering data alone, but this decrease was well over-compensated with the ability of the model to evaluate theoretically the proton–antiproton scattering at the LHC energies, leading to an overall increase of the statistical significance from 6.26 to 7.08 σ signal. [5]

Chronology of articles discovering odderon exchange

AuthorsSubmitted for publicationAccepted for publicationPublishedArticle reference
Tamás Csörgő, Tamás Novák, Roman Pasechnik, András Ster, István Szanyi 15.04.2020. 11.05.2020. 16.06.2020. EPJ Web of Conferences 235, 06002 (2020)
Tamás Csörgő, Tamás Novák, Roman Pasechnik, András Ster, István Szanyi 29.12.2019. 12.01.2021. 23.02.2021. Eur. Phys. J. C81, 180 (2021)
Tamás Csörgő and István Szanyi 06.08.2020. 25.06.2021. 13.07.2021. Eur. Phys. J. C81, 611 (2021)
D0 and TOTEM experimental collaborations 07.12.2020. 10.06.2021. 04.08.2021. Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 062003(2021)

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References

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  2. 1 2 Łukaszuk, L.; Nicolescu, B. (1 October 1973). "A possible interpretation of pp rising total cross-sections". Lettere al Nuovo Cimento. 8 (7): 405–413. doi:10.1007/BF02824484. S2CID   122981407.
  3. Joynson, D.; Leader, E.; Nicolescu, B.; Lopez, C. (1 December 1975). "Non-regge and hyper-regge effects in pion–nucleon charge exchange scattering at high energies". Il Nuovo Cimento A. 30 (3): 345–384. Bibcode:1975NCimA..30..345J. doi:10.1007/BF02730293. S2CID   124183973.
  4. 1 2 Csörgő, T.; Novák, T.; Pasechnik, R.; Ster, A.; Szanyi, I. (23 February 2021). "Evidence of Odderon-exchange from scaling properties of elastic scattering at TeV energies". The European Physical Journal C. 81 (2): 180 https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.11968. Bibcode:2021EPJC...81..180C. doi : 10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-08867-6 S2CID 209500465.
  5. 1 2 Csörgő, T.; Szanyi, I. (13 July 2021). "Observation of Odderon effects at LHC energies: a real extended Bialas–Bzdak model study". The European Physical Journal C. 81 (7): 611. arXiv:2005.14319. Bibcode:2021EPJC...81..611C. doi : 10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09381-5 S2CID 219124254.

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