Review of Forward Physics at RHIC Original Research Article

The RHIC high energy collision of species ranging from p+p, p(d)+A to A+A provide access to the small-x component of the hadron wave function. The RHIC program has brought renewed interest in that subject with its ability to reach values of the parton momentum fraction smaller than 0.01 with studies of particle production at high rapidity. Furthermore, the use of heavy nuclei in the p(d)+A collisions facilitates the study of saturation effects in the gluonic component of the nuclei because the appropriate scale for that regime grows as View the MathML source. We review the experimental results of the RHIC program that have relevance to small-x emphasizing the physics extracted from d+Au collisions and their comparison to p+p collisions at the same energy.