Nuclear structure functions and heavy flavour leptoproduction off the nucleus at small x in perturbative QCD

Abstract.

Nuclear structure functions and cross-sections for heavy flavour production in lepton–nucleus collisions are investigated in the low x region accessible now or in the near future. The scattering on a heavy nucleus is described by the sum of fan diagrams of BFKL pomerons, which is exact in the high-colour limit. The initial condition for the evolution at x=0.01 is taken from a saturation model, which reproduces the experimental data on the proton. The $A$ dependence of the structure functions is well described by a power factor $A^\alpha$, with $\alpha$ reaching values as low as 1/2 at extremely low x. The total cross-sections for heavy flavour production reach values of the order of mb, and the corresponding transverse momentum distributions are sizable up to transverse momenta larger than the initial large scale $(Q^2+4m_f^2)^{1/2}$.