Proton Production in a New Cumulative Region of Central Rapidities and Large Transverse Momenta Due to Coherent Quark Fusion

Abstract In this paper, we treat the process of proton production in a new cumulative region of central rapidities and large transverse momenta in the interaction of two fluctons due to the coherent fusion of three quarks. A general expression for the inclusive cross section of proton production in dd collisions for this process is found. The contribution of the coherent fusion of quarks to the production of protons is shown to dominate over the contribution from quark-to-proton fragmentation due to the smaller number of hard exchanges and the lack of need for all quarks to occupy a small region. For the same reason, the standard quark counting rules are violated in the process of fusion. The results obtained can be used in the SPD experiment to analyze proton yields in the new cumulative region in dd collisions at the NICA collider.