Elliptic Flow in Small Systems due to Elliptic Gluon Distributions?

Abstract

We investigate the contributions from the so-called elliptic gluon Wigner distributions to the rapidity and azimuthal correlations of particles produced in high energy $pA$ collisions by applying the double parton scattering mechanism. We compute the `elliptic flow' parameter $v_2$ as a function of the transverse momentum and rapidity, and find qualitative agreement with experimental observations. This shall encourage further developments with more rigorous studies of the elliptic gluon distributions and their applications in hard scattering processes in $pp$ and $pA$ collisions.

8 pages, 8 figures; v2 discussion in the numerical section modified, results unchanged, to appear in Phys. Lett. B; v3 one reference added