# References

ITEP-PH-5/98   
FZ-IKP(TH)-1998-33

Precocious asymptopia for charm from the running BFKL   

N.N. Nikolaev<sup>α</sup> and V. R. Zoller<sup>β</sup>   
<sup>α</sup> Institut für Kernphysik, Forschungszentrum Jülich,   
D-52425 Jülich, Germany   
E-mail: kph154@ikp301.ikp.kfa-juelich.de   

<sup>β</sup>Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics,   
Moscow 117218, Russia   
E-mail: zoller@heron.itep.ru   

Abstract

The running BFKL equation gives rise to a series of moving poles in the complex $`j`$-plane. Corresponding eigenfunctions (color dipole cross sections) are the oscillating functions of the color dipole size $`r`$. The first nodes for all sub-leading solutions (color dipole cross sections) accumulate at $`r_10.1\mathrm{fm}`$. Therefore the processes dominated by the dipole sizes $`rr_1`$ are free of sub-leading BFKL corrections. A practically important example - the leptoproduction of charm. In a wide range of $`Q^2`$ the calculated $`F_2^{cc}(x,Q^2)`$ is exhausted by the leading BFKL pole and gives a perfect description of the experimental data.   

The generalized Balitskii-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL ) equation for the interaction cross section $`\sigma (x,r)`$ of the color dipole $`\stackrel{}{r}`$ with the target reads 

$$\frac{\sigma (x,r)}{\mathrm{log}(1/x)}=𝒦\sigma (x,r)$$
(1)   
where $`x`$ is the Bjorken variable. The kernel $`𝒦`$ is related to the flux of the Weizsäcker-Williams soft gluons $`|\stackrel{}{E}(\stackrel{}{\rho }_1)\stackrel{}{E}(\stackrel{}{\rho }_2)|^2`$. The Asymptotic Freedom (AF) dictates that the chromoelectric fields $`\stackrel{}{E}(\stackrel{}{\rho })`$ be calculated with the running QCD charge $`g_S(r_m)=\sqrt{4\pi \alpha _S(r_m)}`$ taken at shortest relevant distance $`r_m=`$min$`\{r,\rho \}`$ and

$$\stackrel{}{E}(\stackrel{}{\rho })=g_S(r_m)\stackrel{}{\rho }/\rho ^2\times (\mathrm{screening}\mathrm{factor}).$$

Within the infrared regularization scheme described in 

$$\stackrel{}{E}(\stackrel{}{\rho })=g_S(r_m)\frac{\stackrel{}{\rho }}{\rho R_c}K_1(\rho /R_c),$$
(2)   
where $`K_1(x)`$ is the modified Bessel function. Our numerical results are for the Yukawa screening radius $`R_c=0.27\mathrm{fm}`$. The anlysis of the lattice QCD data on the field strength correlators suggests similar $`R_c`$ . The so introduced running coupling may not exhaust all NLO effects but it correctly describes the crucial enhancement of long distance, and suppression of short distance, effects by AF.

Our findings on the running BFKL equation which are of prime importance for the problem under discussion are as follows . The spectrum of the running BFKL equation is a series of moving poles $`𝐈𝐏_n`$ in the complex $`j`$-plane with eigenfunctions

$$\sigma _n(x,r)=\sigma _n(r)\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }_n\mathrm{log}(1/x))$$
(3)   
being a solution of

$$𝒦\sigma _n=\mathrm{\Delta }_n\sigma _n(r).$$
(4)   
The leading eigen-function $`\sigma _0(r)`$ is node free. The sub-leading $`\sigma _n(r)`$ has $`n`$ nodes. The intercepts $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n`$ closely, to better than $`10\%`$, follow the law

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_n=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{(n+1)}$$
(5)   
suggested earlier by Lipatov  . The intercept of the leading pole trajectory, with our specific choice of the infrared regulator, $`R_c=0.27\mathrm{fm}`$, is $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0\mathrm{\Delta }_{𝐈𝐏}=0.4`$. The sub-leading $`\sigma _n(r)`$ represented in term of $`(r)=\sigma _n(r)/r`$, to a crude approximation is similar to Lipatov’s quasi-classical eigenfunctions ,

$$_n(r)\mathrm{cos}[\varphi (r)].$$

With $`R_c=0.27\mathrm{fm}`$ the node of $`\sigma _1(r)`$ is located at $`r=r_10.050.06\mathrm{fm}`$, for larger $`n`$ the first node moves to a somewhat larger $`r0.1\mathrm{fm}`$. Hence, $`\sigma (x,r_1)`$ is dominated by $`\sigma _0(x,r_1)`$. This observation explains the precocious asymptopia for the dipole cross section,

$$\sigma (x,r)(1/x)^{\mathrm{\Delta }_{𝐈𝐏}},$$

at $`r0.1\mathrm{fm}`$ derived previously from the numerical studies of the running BFKL equation . Consequently, zooming at $`\sigma (x,r_1)`$ one can readily measure $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{𝐈𝐏}`$. The point we want to make here is that because $`r_11/m_c`$, the excitation of open charm provides the desired zooming. Indeed, we shall demonstrate that the effect of suppression of the sub-leading BFKL terms in $`F_2^{cc}(x,Q^2)`$ is remarkably strong<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1The preliminary results have been reported at the DIS’98 Workshop .   

The color dipole representation for the charm structure function (SF) reads 

$$F_2^{cc}(x,Q^2)=\frac{Q^2}{4\pi \alpha _{em}}\sigma =\frac{Q^2}{4\pi \alpha _{em}}_0^1𝑑zd^2\stackrel{}{r}|\mathrm{\Psi }^{cc}(z,r)|^2\sigma (x,r),$$
(6)   
Starting with the BFKL-Regge expansion

$$\sigma (x,r)=\sigma _0(r)(x_0/x)^{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}+\sigma _1(r)(x_0/x)^{\mathrm{\Delta }_1}+\sigma _2(r)(x_0/x)^{\mathrm{\Delta }_2}+\mathrm{}.$$
(7)   
with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n`$ determined in  we arrive at the BFKL-Regge expansion for the charm SF

$$F_2^{cc}(x,Q^2)=\underset{n}{}f_n^{cc}(Q^2)(x_0/x)^{\mathrm{\Delta }_n},$$
(8)   
where the charm eigen-SF is as follows

$$f_n^{cc}(Q^2)=\frac{Q^2}{4\pi \alpha _{em}}\sigma _n.$$
(9)   
In conjunction with the explicit form of the $`c\overline{c}`$ light-cone wave function, $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{cc}(z,r)`$ ,

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_T^{cc}(z,r)|^2=\frac{24\alpha _{em}}{9(2\pi )^2}\left\{\left[z^2+(1z)^2\right]\epsilon ^2K_1(\epsilon r)^2+m_c^2K_0(\epsilon r)^2\right\},$$
(10)   
where $`K_{0,1}(x)`$ are the modified Bessel functions, $`\epsilon ^2=z(1z)Q^2+m_c^2`$, $`m_c=1.5\mathrm{GeV}`$ is the $`c`$-quark mass and $`z`$ is the light-cone fraction of photon’s momentum carried by the quark of the $`c\overline{c}`$ pair, the eqs.(6), (9) show that the integral over $`r`$ in (6) is dominated by

$$Q^2\text{ }<r^2\text{ }<m_c^2.$$

Indeed, making use of the properties of modified Bessel functions, after z-integration one can write

$$f_n^{cc}(Q^2)_{1/Q^2}^{1/m_c^2}\frac{dr^2}{r^2}\frac{\sigma _n(r)}{r^2}.$$
(11)   
The dipole cross section $`\sigma _n(r)`$ in (11) is an oscillating function of $`r`$ with the first node located inside the integration region. Then in a broad range of $`Q^2`$ one has strong cancellations in (11) for sub-leading poles which result in the leading pole dominance in charm production (Fig. 1). For large $`Q^2`$, far beyond the nodal region, the effect of cancellations disappears and

$$f_n^{cc}(Q^2)\left[\alpha _S(Q^2)\right]^{\gamma _n}$$
(12)   
with $`\gamma _n=\frac{4}{3\mathrm{\Delta }_n}`$.

For practical purposes it is convenient to represent $`f_n^{cc}(Q^2)`$ in an analytical form. The parameterization for the leading pole SF reads

$$f_0(Q^2)=a_0\frac{R_0^2Q^2}{1+R_0^2Q^2}\left[1+c_0\mathrm{log}(1+r_0^2Q^2)\right]^{\gamma _0},$$
(13)   
where $`\gamma _0=\frac{4}{3\mathrm{\Delta }_0}.`$

For $`n1`$ the functions $`f_n(Q^2)`$ can be approximated by

$$f_n(Q^2)=a_nf_0(Q^2)\frac{1+R_0^2Q^2}{1+R_n^2Q^2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\left(1\frac{z}{z_n^{(i)}}\right),$$
(14)   
where

$$z=\left[1+c_n\mathrm{log}(1+r_n^2Q^2)\right]^{\gamma _n}1$$
(15)   
and

$$\gamma _n=\gamma _0\delta _n$$
(16)   
with parameters listed in the Table.

| $`n`$ | $`a_n`$ | $`c_n`$ | $`r_n^2,`$ $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ | $`R_n^2,`$ $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ | $`z_n^{(1)}`$ | $`z_n^{(2)}`$ | $`\delta _n`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 0 | 0.0214 | 0.2619 | 0.3239 | 0.2846 |  |  |  |
| 1 | 0.0782 | 0.0352 | 0.0793 | 0.2958 | 0.2499 |  | 1.9249 |
| 2 | 0.0044 | 0.0362 | 0.0884 | 0.2896 | 0.0175 | 3.447 | 1.7985 |

In Fig.2 our predictions for the charm structure function are compared with data from H1  and ZEUS . We correct for threshold effects by the rescaling  $`xx(1+4m_c^2/Q^2)`$. From both Fig.1 and Fig.2 it follows that the charm production in a wide range of the photon virtualities, $`Q^2\text{ }<10^2\mathrm{GeV}^2`$, provides the unique opportunity of getting hold of elusive BFKL asymptotics and measuring $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{𝐈𝐏}`$ already at currently available $`x`$.

Figure captions

1. Modulus of the charm eigen-SF $`|f_n^{cc}(Q^2)|`$ for the BFKL poles with $`n=0,1,2`$.
2. The predicted charm structure function $`F_2^{cc}(x,Q^2)`$ (solid line) vs. H1 and ZEUS data. The contribution of the leading pole with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{𝐈𝐏}=0.4`$ is shown by dashed line. Fig.2a corresponds to $`Q^2=45GeV^2`$, Fig.2b - $`Q^2=25GeV^2`$, Fig.2c - $`Q^2=12GeV^2`$ and Fig.2d - $`Q^2=7GeV^2`$.