Saturation in High-energy QCD

Abstract

In these proceedings, I shall review the basic concepts of perturbative QCD in its high-energy limit, emphasising the approach to the unitarity limit, usually referred to as {\em saturation}. I shall explain the basic framework showing the need for saturation, first, from a simple picture of the high-energy behaviour, then, giving a short derivation of the equation driving this evolution. In the second part, I shall exhibit an analogy with statistical physics and show how this allows to derive {\em geometric scaling} in QCD with saturation. I shall finally consider the effects of gluon-number fluctuations on this picture.

10 pages, 11 figures, talk given at the XXVI Brazilian National Meeting on Particles and Fields, Sao Lourenco, Brazil, October 2005