The level of 'anomalous' charmonium suppression in high-energy heavy-ion collisions and its interpretation as a signal of quark-gluon plasma formation requires a robust understanding of charmonium production and absorption in proton-nucleus collisions. In a previous study we have shown that, contrary to common belief, the so-called J/[psi] 'absorption cross section', [sigma]{sub abs}{sup J/[psi]}, is not a 'universal constant' but, rather, an effective parameter that depends very significantly on the charmonium rapidity and on the collision energy. Here we present ugraded Glauber calculations with the EPS09 parameterization of nuclear modifications of the parton densities. We confirm that the effective 'absorption cross section' depends on the J/{psi} kinematics and the collision energy. We also make further steps towards understanding the physics of the mechanisms behind the observed 'cold nuclear matter' effects.

The authors study medium modifications of J/[psi] production in cold nuclear media in deuterium-nucleus collisions. They discuss several parameterizations of the modifications of the parton densities in the nucleus, known as shadowing, an initial-state effect. They also include absorption of the produced J/[psi] by nucleons, a final-state effect. Both spatially homogeneous and inhomogeneous shadowing and absorption are considered. They use the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions as a centrality measure. Results are presented for d+Au collisions at √S{sub NN} = 200 GeV and for d+Pb collisions at √S{sub NN} = 6.2 TeV. To contrast the centrality dependence in pA and dA collisions, they also present pPb results at √S{sub NN} = 8.8 TeV.

J/psi and psi' produced in high-energy heavy-ion collisions are absorbed by their collisions with nucleons and produced soft particles, leading to two distinct absorption mechanisms. The signature of absorption by produced soft particles, as revealed by psi' production data, consists of a gap and a change of the slope in going from the pA line to the nucleus-nucleus line when we make a semi-log plot of the survival probability as a function of the path length. Using this signature, we find from the J/psi production data in pA, O-Cu, O-U, and S-U collisions that the degree of J/psi absorption by produced soft particles is small and cannot account for the J/psi data in Pb-Pb collisions. The anomalous suppression of J/psi production in Pb-Pb collisions can be explained as due to the occurrence of a new phase of strong J/psi absorption, which sets in when the local energy density exceeds about 3.4 GeV/fm3. To probe the chemical content of the new phase, we propose to study the abundance of open-charm mesons and charm hyperons which depends sensitively on the quark chemical potential.

The anomalous suppression of J/[psi] production in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 GeV observed by the NA50 Collaboration can be explained as due to the occurrence of a new phase of strong J/[psi] absorption, which sets in when the local energy density exceeds about 3.4 GeV/fm[sup 3]. The peculiar behavior of the[psi][sup']/[psi] ratio in[ital p]-A and nucleus-nucleus collisions can be understood as due to approximately equal[psi]-N and[psi][sup']-N absorption cross sections, but greater absorption cross sections for[psi][sup'] than J/[psi] with regard to absorption by soft particles and matter in the new phase.

We have carried out a wide study of Cold Nuclear Matter (CNM) effects on J/? = production in dAu, CuCu and AuAu collisions at √s{sub NN} = 200 GeV. We have studied the effects of three different gluon-shadowing parameterizations, using the usual simplified kinematics for which the momentum of the gluon recoiling against the J/? is neglected as well as an exact kinematics for a 2 → 2 process, namely g + g → J/? + g as expected from LO pQCD. We have shown that the rapidity distribution of the nuclear modification factor R{sub dAu}, and particularly its anti-shadowing peak, is systematically shifted toward larger rapidities in the 2 → 2 kinematics, irrespective of which shadowing parameterization is used. In turn, we have noted differences in the effective final-state nuclear absorption needed to fit the PHENIX dAu data. Taking advantage of our implementation of a 2 → 2 kinematics, we have also computed the transverse momentum dependence of the nuclear modification factor, which cannot be predicted with the usual simplified kinematics. All the corresponding observables have been computed for CuCu and AuAu collisions and compared to the PHENIX and STAR data. Finally, we have extracted the effective nuclear absorption from the recent measurements of RCP in dAu collisions by the PHENIX collaboration.

The authors have studied J/[psi] production in p[anti p] collisions at[radical]s= 1.8 TeV with the D0 detector at Fermilab, using a[mu][sup+][mu][sup[minus]] data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 13 pb[sup[minus]1]. They have measured the inclusive J/[psi] production cross section as a function of J/[psi] transverse momentum p[sub T]. For the kinematic range p[sub T]> 8 GeV/c and[vert-bar][eta][vert-bar]

The STAR collaboration at RHIC presents measurements of J/[psi] → e+e− at mid-rapidity and high transverse momentum (p{sub T} > 5 GeV/c) in p+p and central Cu+Cu collisions at √sNN = 200 GeV. The inclusive J/[psi] production cross section for Cu+Cu collisions is found to be consistent at high p{sub T} with the binary collision-scaled cross section for p+p collisions, in contrast to previous measurements at lower p{sub T}, where a suppression of J/[psi] production is observed relative to the expectation from binary scaling. Azimuthal correlations of J/[psi] with charged hadrons in p+p collisions provide an estimate of the contribution of B-meson decays to J/[psi] production of 13% ± 5%.

The d+Au data from RHIC, including the pA results from the fixed-target CERN SPS pA data, suggest increased importance of initial-state shadowing and decreasing nuclear absorption with increasing energy. This is not surprising since smaller x is probed at higher energy while absorption due to multiple scattering is predicted to decrease with energy. The CERN SPS data suggest a J/[psi] absorption cross section of about 4 mb without shadowing, and a larger absorption cross section if it is included since the SPS x range is in the antishadowing region. The d+Au RHIC data support smaller absorption, [sigma]{sup J/[psi]}{sub abs} ≈ 0-2 mb. Thus our predictions for J/{psi} and [Upsilon] production in pPb and Pb+Pb interactions at the LHC are shown for initial-state shadowing alone with no absorption or dense matter effects. We note that including absorption would only move the calculated ratios down in proportion to the absorption survival probability since, at LHC energies, any rapidity dependence of absorption is at very large.

This volume contains the invited and contributed papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Perspectives in Hadronic Physics and sent to the Editors within the deadline. The Conference was held at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy, from May 12th to 16th, 2003, and was attended by about 100 scientists from 20 countries. The series ofConferences on Perspectives on Hadronic Physics takes place every two years since 1997 and follows the seven Workshops on Perspectives in Nuclear Physics at Intermediate Energies, organized every two years at ICTP since 1983. The aim of these Conferences is to discuss the status-of-the-art concerning the experimental and theoretical investigations of hadronic systems, from nucleons to nuclei and dense nuclear matter, in terms of the relevant underlying degrees of freedom. For such a reason the Fourth Conference has been focused on those experimental and theoretical topics which have been in the last few years the object of intensive investigations, viz. the various approaches employed to describe the structure of hadrons in terms of QCD and QCD inspired models, the recent developments in the treatment of the properties and propagations of hadronic states in the medium, the relevant progress done in the solution of the few- and many- hadron problems, the recent results in the experimental investigation of dense hadronic matter and, last but not least, the physics programs of existing Laboratories and the suggested projects for new Facilities.