Hadroproduction of $\phi$-mesons in the quark-gluon string model

We consider the experimental data on $\phi$-meson production in hadron-nucleon collisions for a wide energy region. The quark-gluon string model quantitatively describes the spectra of secondary $\phi$, as well as the ratios of $\phi /{\pi }^{-}$ and $\phi /K^{-}$ production cross sections.

Figure 1

(a) Cylindrical diagram representing a Pomeron exchange within the DTU classification (quarks are shown by solid lines), (b) a cut of the cylindrical diagram corresponding to the single-Pomeron exchange contribution to inelastic $pp$ scattering, and (c) the cuts of the diagrams for the inelastic interaction of the incident proton with a target nucleon in a $pp$ collision.

Figure 2

Different experimental data on $x_F$ spectra of $\phi$ mesons produced in ${\pi }^{\pm }p$ collisions at different energies [22, 23, 24], compared to the corresponding QGSM calculations (see the main text for the description of the different experimental data sets and theoretical curves).

Figure 3

The experimental data [14, 22, 23, 26] on the $x_F$ spectra of $\phi$ mesons produced in $pp$ collisions at 93, 120, 158, and $200\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}$, compared to the corresponding QGSM calculations at 93, 158, and $200\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}$.

Figure 4

The QGSM $x_F$ spectra of $\phi$ mesons produced in $pp$ collisions at $400\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}$ compared to the experimental data [28].

Figure 5

The experimental data [28] on the $y$ spectra $dn/dy$ of $\phi$ mesons produced in $pp$ collisions at $158\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}$, and the corresponding QGSM calculation (full line). The dashed and dashed-dotted lines correspond to QGSM predictions for LHC energies of 7 and 14 TeV, respectively.

Figure 6

The QGSM description of the invariant cross section of $K^{+}$ (upper panel) and $K^{-}$ (lower panel) mesons produced in $pp$ collisions compared to the experimental data at different energies [14, 26, 29]. Solid lines correspond to the QGSM result at $158\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}$ ($\sqrt{s}=17.3\mathrm{GeV}$), while dashed lines correspond to the QGSM calculation at RHIC energy ($\sqrt{s}=200\mathrm{Gev}$).

Figure 7

The QGSM description of the $\sqrt{s}$ dependence of $\phi /{\pi }^{-}$ (upper panel) and $\phi /K^{-}$ (lower panel) cross section ratios produced in $pp$ collisions, compared to the corresponding experimental data in Refs. [30, 31, 32].

Figure 8

Planar diagrams which determine the low-$x$ asymptotic behavior of (a) the valence quark distribution and (b) of the diquark distribution in a nucleon.