Nuclear transverse momentum dependent gluon density at low $x$ and inclusive soft hadron production in proton-lead collisions at LHC

Abstract

We report the results of calculations of inclusive soft hadron production in proton-lead collisions at the LHC in the framework of modified quark-gluon string model (QGSM) extended to $pA$ interactions. Our consideration involves the nuclear modification of previously proposed transverse momentum dependent (TMD, or unintegrated) gluon density in a proton, which provides a self-consistent simultaneous description of numerous HERA and LHC data on $pp$, $ep$ and $\gamma p$ processes. Such nuclear modification is based on well established property of geometrical scaling from nucleons to nuclei. Focusing on the region of small $x$ and low scales, we obtain predictions for transverse momentum spectra of pions and kaons at $p_T \leq 1$~GeV. Our results are compared with recent data reported by the CMS, ATLAS and ALICE Collaborations at $\sqrt s = 5.02$~TeV. We find that the developed approach provides a better description of low-$p_T$ data than the predictions made by other groups.