Prompt photon production in high-energy pA collisions at forward rapidity

Abstract

Prompt photon production in hadronic collisions at energies available at RHIC and at the LHC is investigated within the QCD color dipole approach. Predictions for the nuclear modification factor in pA collisions are evaluated based on the parton saturation framework, and the results are compared with the experimental measurements as a function of the photon transverse momentum at different rapidity bins. The reliability of the models is performed with the data from the PHENIX, ATLAS, and ALICE Collaborations. Moreover, we show that the observed xT scaling of prompt photon production in pp and pA collisions can positively be addressed in the QCD color dipole formalism.