Has saturation physics been observed in deuteron–gold collisions at RHIC? Original Research Article

In the framework of the recently proposed saturation picture, we examine in a systematic way whether the nuclear modification factor measured for d–Au collisions at RHIC may be simply explained. The Cronin peak which is obtained at mid-rapidity around View the MathML source may be reproduced at the proper height only by boosting the saturation momentum by an additional nuclear component as already shown in the literature. In this respect, mid-rapidity RHIC data cannot necessarily be seen as a probe of the saturation picture. The large rapidity (η≃3) region allows us to test the shape of the unintegrated gluon distribution in the nucleus, investigating various parameterizations inspired by large rapidity solutions (of the BFKL and) of the Balitsky–Kovchegov (BK) equation. A satisfactory description of RCP at RHIC is obtained in the BK picture.