Cronin Effect in Hadron Production Off Nuclei

Abstract

Recent data from RHIC for high- pT hadrons raised again the long-standing problem of quantitatively understanding the Cronin effect, i.e., nuclear enhancement of high- pT hadrons. All existing models for the Cronin effect rely on a fit to the data to be explained. We develop a phenomenological description based on the light-cone QCD-dipole approach which allows one to explain data without fitting to them and to provide predictions for pA collisions at RHIC and LHC. We point out that the underlying mechanism drastically changes with energy, from incoherent production of high- pT hadrons on different nucleons at low energies, to an entirely coherent process at very high energies.