From Crepes to Pancakes in the MV Model

Abstract

The McLerran-Venugopalan model provides a framework which allows one to compute the gluon distribution function of a very large nucleus from the equations of QCD, provided that the longitudinal momentum fraction, xF, is sufficiently small. The source of color charge for this computation may be thought of as a crepe moving along the z axis at the speed of light. We refine the MV model by allowing for the presence of non-trivial longitudinal correlations between the color charges that comprise the nucleons. We find that a consistent treatment forces us to consider a pancake-like source which moves at slightly less than the speed of light. Our calculation allows us to consider larger values of xF than were allowed in the original MV model.