Novel mechanisms of baryon number flow over large rapidity gap

Abstract

It is shown that slow valence quark in the wave function of high energy proton can fragment into a baryon if the fast diquark-spectator is destroyed, i.e. is turned from the antitriplet to the sextet colour state. We estimated the cross section of the baryon number flow to the central rapidity region using the perturbative QCD. It depends on the rapidity gap Δy as exp (-Δy/2) and nicely agrees with the data at ISR energies, There exists also an intriguing possibility to transfer baryon number by means of gluonic exchanges only. This contribution does not depend on rapidity at all and becomes sizable in TeV energy region. We propose also new mechanisms for baryonantibaryon production from vacuum, transfer of polarization over large rapidity intervals, and nuclear stopping power.