The presence of geometric scaling within the $p_T$ spectra of produced hadrons at high energy $pp$ collisions using small-$x$ $k_T$-factorization is investigated. It is proposed a phenomenological parameterization for the unintegrated gluon distribution in the scaling range that reproduces the features of the differential cross section both in the saturated and dilute perturbative QCD regimes. As the saturation scale acts as an effective regulator of the infrared region, the extension of the model to quantities usually associated to soft physics is studied. The approach is applied to compute the average $p_T$ and the rapidity distribution of produced gluons at high energies.

• Received 19 May 2020
• Accepted 24 July 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.102.034016

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Published by the American Physical Society