Abstract

We show that HERA data for the inclusive structure function F2(x,Q2) at small Bjorken-x and Q2 can be reasonably well described by a color-dipole model with an anti-de Sitter space/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT)-inspired dipole-proton cross section. The model contains only three free parameters fitted to data. In our AdS/CFT-based parameterization the saturation scale varies in the range of 1÷3GeV becoming independent of energy/Bjorken-x at very small x. This leads to the prediction of x independence of the F2 and FL structure functions at very small x. We provide predictions for F2 and FL in the kinematic regions of future experiments. We discuss the limitations of our approach and its applicability region, and argue that our AdS/CFT-based model of nonperturbative physics could be viewed as complementary to the perturbative description of data based on saturation/color glass condensate physics. © 2009 The American Physical Society.