Novel Heavy Quark Phenomena in QCD

Abstract

Heavy quarks provide a new dimension to QCD, allowing tests of fundamental theory, the nature of color confinement, and the production of new exotic multiquark states. I also discuss novel explanations for several apparently anomalous experimental results, such as the large $t \bar t$ forward-backward asymmetry observed in $p \bar p$ colisions at the Tevatron, the large rates for $\gamma$ or $Z$ plus high-$p_T$ charm jets observed at the Tevatron, the strong nuclear absorption of the $J/\psi$ observed in $pA$ collisions at the LHC, as well as fixed target experiments at high $x_F$. Precision measurements of the heavy quark distribution in hadrons at high $x$ are needed since intrinsic heavy quarks can play an important role in high $x$ phenomenology as well as predicting a new mechanism for high-$x_F$ Higgs production. The role of multi-parton interactions, such as di-gluon initiated subprocesses for forward quarkonium hadroproduction, is discussed. I also briefly discuss a new approach to the QCD confinement potential and the origin of the QCD mass scale based on AdS/QCD, light-front holography and a unique extension of conformal theory. The renormalization scale ambiguity can be eliminated at finite orders in pQCD using the scheme-independent PMC procedure, thus increasing the precision of predictions and eliminating an unnecessary source of theoretical systematic error.