Production of qq̅ pairs in proton-nucleus collisions at high energies

Abstract

We calculate production of quark-antiquark pairs in high energy proton-nucleus collisions both in the quasiclassical approximation of McLerran-Venugopalan model and including quantum small-x evolution. The resulting production cross section is explicitly expressed in terms of Glauber-Mueller multiple rescatterings in the classical case and in terms of dipole-nucleus scattering amplitude in the quantum evolution case. We generalize the result of [K. Tuchin, Phys. Lett. B 593, 66 (2004).] beyond the aligned jet configurations. We expand on the earlier results of Blaizot, Gelis and Venugopalan [J. P. Blaizot, F. Gelis, and R. Venugopalan, Nucl. Phys. A743, 57 (2004).] by deriving quark production cross section including quantum evolution corrections in rapidity intervals both between the quarks and the target and between the quarks and the projectile.