Abstract

Pions and protons production cross sections are analyzed in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions at the RHIC energy at midrapidity. We employ the pQCD factorization scheme supplemented with the color-dipole formalism to investigate the Cronin effect. We calculate the broadening in the color-dipole approach for different centralities. Our main goal is to investigate, in a parameter-free manner within a unified framework, how much of the cronin effect for both pions and baryons comes from the transverse momentum broadening due to initial partons multi-scatterings. We conclude that final-state effects in pA collisions are important. Uncertainties in nuclear shadowing of various parton distributions and parton fragmentation functions are also discussed. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.