We study nuclear effects of charged current deep inelastic neutrino-iron scattering in the framework of a chi^2 analysis of parton distribution functions (PDFs). We extract a set of iron PDFs which are used to compute x_Bj-dependent and Q^2-dependent nuclear correction factors for iron structure functions which are required in global analyses of free nucleon PDFs. We compare our results with nuclear correction factors from neutrino-nucleus scattering models and correction factors for charged-lepton--iron scattering. We find that, except for very high x_Bj, our correction factors differ in both shape and magnitude from the correction factors of the models and charged-lepton scattering.
The relationship between the parton transverse momentum and longitudinal momentum, which is obtained by analysing the hadron tensor in the deep inelastic scattering (DIS) process, indicates that the transverse size of partons in a nucleon is sensitively affected by the effective nucleon mass. The change in this transverse size gives rise to an Additional Parton Evolution (APE) in the nuclear environment refer to the normal QCD parton evolution thus resulting in new parton distributions. The self-consistent integral equations for these new parton distributions are given. Having undergone the no…
We introduce a generalized definition of parton distribution functions (PDFs) for a more consistent all-order treatment of power corrections. We present a new set of modified DGLAP evolution equations for nuclear PDFs, and show that the resummed $α_s A^{1/3}/Q^2$-type of leading nuclear size enhanced power corrections significantly slow down the growth of gluon density at small-$x$. We discuss the relation between the calculated power corrections and the saturation phenomena.
We revisit the transverse momentum broadening of a fast parton pair crossing a nuclear medium, putting emphasis on the pair global color state, for any number of colors $N$ and within the eikonal limit for parton propagation and the Gaussian approximation for the gluon field of the target. This study should provide the necessary tools to address nuclear broadening of $n$-parton systems in phenomenology while highlighting the color structure of the process.
We study the nuclear parton distribution functions on the basis of our recently developed semi-microscopic model, which takes into account a number of nuclear effects including nuclear shadowing, Fermi motion and nuclear binding, nuclear meson-exchange currents, and off-shell corrections to bound nucleon distributions. We discuss in detail the dependencies of nuclear effects on the type of parton distribution (nuclear sea vs valence), as well as on the parton flavor (isospin). We apply the resulting nuclear parton distributions to calculate ratios of cross sections for proton-induced Drell-Yan…
We study the parton distribution of nucleon and nuclear EMC effect in a statistical model. We find when we choose the parameters appropriately, the predictions given by pure statistical laws can fit the experimental data well in most range of $x$, this reveal statistical law play an important role in the parton distribution of nucleon.
We perform a next to leading order QCD global analysis of nuclear deep inelastic scattering and Drell-Yan data using the convolution approach to parameterize nuclear parton densities. We find both a significant improvement in the agreement with data compared to previous extractions, and substantial differences in the scale dependence of nuclear effects compared to leading order analyses.
An analytical method is presented to solve generalized QCD evolution equations for the time development of parton cascades in a nuclear environment. Closed solutions for the spectra of produced partons with respect to the variables time, longitudinal momentum and virtuality are obtained under some idealizing assumptions about the composition of the nuclear medium. Several characteristic features of the resulting parton distributions are discussed. One of the main conclusions is that the evolution of a parton shower in medium is dilated as compared to free space and is accompanied by an enhance…
We discuss the nuclear parton distribution functions on the basis of our recently developed semi-microscopic model, which takes into account a number of nuclear effects including Fermi motion and nuclear binding, nuclear meson-exchange currents and off-shell corrections to bound nucleon distributions as well as nuclear shadowing effect. We also discuss application to the nuclear Drell-Yan process and compare our predictions with data from the E772 and E866 experiments.
This work focuses on applications of perturbative QCD (pQCD) and collinear factorization theorem to hard particle production in nuclear and hadronic collisions at the BNL-RHIC and CERN-LHC colliders. The emphasis is on nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) and their spatial dependence. Also parton-to-hadron fragmentation functions (FFs) are studied. A brief overview of the applied theoretical and numerical tools is given in the introductory part.
We calculate nuclear parton distribution functions (PDFs), using the constituent quark model. We find the bounded valon distributions in a nuclear to be related to free valon distributions in a nucleon. By using improved bounded valon distributions for a nuclear with atomic number $A$ and the partonic structure functions inside the valon, we can calculate the nuclear structure function in $x$ space. The results for nuclear structure-function ratio $F_2^A/F_2^D$ at some values of $A$ are in good agreement with the experimental data.
A global analysis of nuclear medium modifications of parton distributions is presented using deeply inelastic scattering data of various nuclear targets. Two obtained data sets are provided for quark and gluon nuclear modification factors, referred as nIMParton16. One is from the global fit only to the experimental data of isospin-scalar nuclei (Set A), and the other is from the fit to all the measured nuclear data (Set B). The scale-dependence is described by DGLAP equations with nonlinear corrections in this work. The Fermi motion and off-shell effect, nucleon swelling, and parton-parton rec…
The energy loss effect in nuclear matter is another nuclear effect apart from the nuclear effects on the parton distribution as in deep inelastic scattering process. The quark energy loss can be measured best by the nuclear dependence of the high energy nuclear Drell-Yan process. By means of two typical kinds of quark energy loss parametrization and the different sets of nuclear parton distribution functions, we present a analysis of the E866 experiments on the nuclear dependence of Drell-Yan lepton pair production resulting from the bombardment of Be, Fe and W targets by 800GeV protons at Fer…
I review recent developments in the extraction of nuclear parton distribution functions. First describing the global analysis framework, I then present a comparison of the latest analyses in terms of included data and theoretical details, pointing out a few general trends.
We review a semi-microscopic model of nuclear parton distributions, which takes into account a number of nuclear effects including Fermi motion and nuclear binding, nuclear meson-exchange currents and off-shell corrections to bound nucleon distributions as well as nuclear shadowing effect. We also discuss applications of the model to the lepton-nuclear deep-inelastic scattering, Drell-Yan process and neutrino total cross sections.
We suggest and explore two observables which may clarify the origin of the attenuation of semi-inclusive hadron production reported in DIS on nuclear targets.
Determination of the nuclear parton distributions within the framework of perturbative QCD, the DGLAP equations in particular, is discussed. Scale and flavour dependent nuclear effects in the parton distributions are compared with the scale and flavour independent parametrizations of HIJING and of the Hard Probe Collaboration. A comparison with the data from deep inelastic lepton-nucleus scattering and the Drell-Yan process in proton-nucleus collisions is shown.
A QCD analysis of the nuclear parton distributions and structure functions in the NLO is performed by using the world data. By having bounded parton distributions for a nuclear with atomic number A, we can obtain the nuclear structure function in x space. Our results for nuclear structure function ratio $F^A_2 /F^D_2$ for some different values of A, are in good agreement with the experimental data. We compare our results for LO and NLO approximation.
The determination of the parton distribution functions (PDFs) is crucial for a complete understanding of the protons and neutrons that make most of the visible matter in the universe. Years of dedicated studies have yielded a quite precise knowledge of the behavior of partons moving collinearly within a proton. However Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) experiments off nuclei have shown a non-trivial difference with respect to DIS in protons, hinting that the partons in a nuclear medium do not behave the same way as in a free proton. In this work we will discuss the latest results in nuclear part…
Multiple parton scatterings inside a large nucleus generally involve higher-twist nuclear parton matrix elements. The gluon bremsstrahlung induced by multiple scattering depends not only on direct parton matrix elements but also on momentum-crossed ones, due to the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal interference effect. We show that both types of twist-four nuclear parton matrix elements can be factorized approximately into the product of twist-two nucleon matrix elements in the limit of extremely large nuclei, $A\to \infty$, as assumed in previous studies. Due to the correlative nature of the twist-fo…
We show for the first time preliminary results of nuclear parton distribution function analysis of charged lepton DIS and Drell-Yan data within the CTEQ framework including error PDFs. We compare our error estimates to estimates of different nPDF groups.
We review a microscopic model of the nuclear parton distribution functions, which accounts for a number of nuclear effects including Fermi motion and nuclear binding, nuclear meson-exchange currents, off-shell corrections to bound nucleon distributions and nuclear shadowing. We also discuss applications of this model to a number of processes including lepton-nucleus deep inelastic scattering, proton-nucleus Drell-Yan lepton pair production at Fermilab, as well as W+- and Z0 boson production in proton-lead collisions at the LHC.
Representing the semi-hard partonic interactions by the exchange of Lipatov's perturbative Pomeron, we express the semi-hard nuclear cross section as a self shadowing cross section. With the help of a generating functional technique, we obtain average numbers of multiple semi-hard partonic collisions without any need of using explicit expressions for the multi-parton distributions. The average number of semi-hard interactions of a given projectile parton against a target nucleus is estimated quantitatively and it is shown to grow very rapidly above one with increasing the c.m. energy. (Figures…
We analyze the role of nuclear modifications of parton distributions, notably, the nuclear shadowing and antishadowing corrections, in production of lepton pairs from decays of neutral electroweak gauge bosons in proton-lead and lead-collisions at the LHC. Using the Collins-Soper-Sterman resummation formalism that we extended to the case of nuclear parton distributions, we observed a direct correlation between the predicted behavior of the transverse momentum and rapidity distributions of the produced vector bosons and the pattern of quark and gluon nuclear modifications. This makes Drell-Yan …
An essential prerequisite for quark-gluon plasma production in nuclear collisions is cross-talk between the partons from different nucleons in the colliding nuclei. The initial density of partons is determined by the parton distribution functions obtained from deep inelastic lepton-hadron scattering and by the nuclear geometry; it increases with increasing $A$ and/or $\sqrt s$. In the transverse collision plane, this results in clusters of overlapping partons, and at some critical density, the cluster size suddenly reaches the size of the system. The onset of large-scale cross-talk through col…
In this paper we propose an improvement of the EKS nuclear parton distributions for the small x region of high energy processes, where the perturbative high parton density effects cannot be disregarded. We analyze the behavior of the ratios $xG_A/xG_N$ and $F_2^A/F_2^D$ and verify that at small x they are strongly modified when compared to the EKS predictions. The implications of our results for the heavy ion collisions in RHIC and LHC are discussed.
We present a new global QCD analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions and their uncertainties. In addition to the most commonly analyzed data sets for the deep-inelastic scattering of charged leptons off nuclei and Drell-Yan di-lepton production, we include also measurements for neutrino-nucleus scattering and inclusive pion production in deuteron-gold collisions. The analysis is performed at next-to-leading order accuracy in perturbative QCD in a general mass variable flavor number scheme, adopting a current set of free nucleon parton distribution functions, defined accordingly, as re…
We calculate nuclear modification factors $R_{dAu}$, central-to-peripheral ratios, $R_{CP}$, and pseudorapidity asymmetries $Y_{Asym}$ in deuteron-gold collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 200$ GeV in the framework of leading-order (LO) perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics. We use the Eskola-Kolhinen-Salgado (EKS), the Frankfurt-Guzey-Strikman (FGS) and the Hirai-Kumano-Nagai (HKN) nuclear parton distribution functions and the Albino-Kramer-Kniehl (AKK) fragmentation functions in our calculations. Results are compared to experimental data from the BRAHMS and STAR collaborations.
We generalize the leading twist theory of nuclear shadowing and calculate quark and gluon generalized parton distributions (GPDs) of spinless nuclei. We predict very large nuclear shadowing for nuclear GPDs. In the limit of the purely transverse momentum transfer, our nuclear GPDs become impact-parameter-dependent nuclear parton distributions (PDFs). Nuclear shadowing induces nontrivial correlations between the impact parameter b and the light-cone fraction x. We make predictions for the deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) amplitude and the DVCS cross section on Pb-208 at high energies. W…
We investigate the sensitivity of $J/Ψ$ production in proton-neutron and proton-deuteron collisions to charge symmetry violations in the parton distributions as well as to nuclear corrections. It is found that the effects of charge symmetry violations in the quark distributions are confined to large $x_F$ and difficult to measure in experiments currently being planned. However, from proton-deuteron experiments it should be possible to isolate nuclear corrections to the gluon distribution.
We review recent theoretical results on generalized parton distributions (GPDs) of nuclei, emphasizing the following three roles of nuclear GPDs: (i) complementarity to free proton GPDs, (ii) the enhancement of traditional nuclear effects such as nuclear binding, EMC effect, nuclear shadowing, and (iii) an access to novel nuclear effects such as medium modifications of bound nucleons.
We present the first official release of the nCTEQ nuclear parton distribution functions with errors. The main addition to the previous nCTEQ PDFs is the introduction of PDF uncertainties based on the Hessian method. Another important addition is the inclusion of pion production data from RHIC that give us a handle on constraining the gluon PDF. This contribution summarizes our results from arXiv:1509.00792 and concentrates on the comparison with other groups providing nuclear parton distributions.
We present the first official release of the nCTEQ nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) with errors. The main addition to the previous nCTEQ PDFs is the introduction of PDF uncertainties based on the Hessian method. Another important improvement is the inclusion of pion production data from RHIC giving us a handle to constrain gluon PDF. In this presentation we briefly discuss the framework of our analysis and concentrate on the comparison of our results with those of other groups.
In this paper we explore the use of results on forward particle production at the LHC to constrain nuclear Parton Density Functions (nPDFs). The case study here is based on a possible future measurement of forward photon production with the Forward Calorimeter that is currently under discussion as an upgrade of the ALICE experiment. As a starting point, we use the recent nNNPDF 1.0 nuclear PDFs, which have been determined using fixed target neutral-current DIS data, which constrain the gluon density at x > $10^{-2}$. The Bayesian reweighting technique is used to include the constraints from th…
In order to overcome the shortcoming of nonconservation of nuclear momentum existing in the original $Q^2$-rescaling model(O$Q^2$RM) and avoid introducing nuclear shadowing factor, we proposed a double $Q^2$-rescaling model(D$Q^2$RM) for the parton distributions of the bound nucleon. Using the experimental data of lepton-nucleus deep inelastic scattering(DIS) and the condition of the nuclear momentum conservation, the $Q^2$-rescaling parameters of various partons for Sn, Fe, Ca and C nuclei are determined. The rescaling parameters of valence quark distributions are larger than unity and gradua…
The average number of minijets and the corresponding transverse energy produced in heavy ion collisions are evaluated by including explicitly semi-hard parton rescatterings in the dynamics of the interaction. At the LHC semi-hard rescatterings have a sizable effect on global characteristics of the typical inelastic event. An interesting feature is that the dependence on the cutoff which separates soft and hard parton interactions becomes less critical after taking rescatterings into account.
Parametrizations of fragmentation functions (FFs) from $e^+$-$e^-$ and p-p collisions are combined with a parton spectrum model in a pQCD folding integral to produce minimum-bias {\em fragment distributions}. A model of in-medium FF modification is included. Calculated fragment distributions are compared with {\em hard components} from p-p and Au-Au $p_t$ spectra. Data are well described by pQCD over a large kinematic region for a range of Au-Au centralities.
We present a detailed phenomenological study of the associated production of a prompt photon and a heavy-quark jet (charm or bottom) in proton-nucleus (p-A) and nucleus-nucleus (A-A) collisions. The dominant contribution to the cross-section comes from the gluon--heavy-quark (gQ) initiated subprocess, making this process very sensitive to the gluon and the heavy quark nuclear parton densities. We show that the future p-A data to be collected at the LHC should allow one to disentangle the various nPDF sets currently available. In heavy-ion collisions, the photon transverse momentum can be used …
Neutrino Deep Inelastic Scattering on nuclei is an essential process to constrain the strange quark parton distribution functions in the proton. The critical component on the way to using the neutrino DIS data in a proton PDF analysis is understanding the nuclear effects in parton distribution functions. We parametrize these effects by nuclear parton distribution functions and we use this framework to analyze the consistency of neutrino DIS data with other nuclear data.
Hard components of $p_t$ spectra can be identified with minimum-bias parton fragmentation in nuclear collisions. Minimum-bias fragment distributions (FDs) can be calculated by folding a power-law parton energy spectrum with parametrized fragmentation functions (FFs) derived from $e^+$-$e^-$ and p-p collisions. Alterations to FFs due to parton "energy loss" or "medium modification" in Au-Au collisions are modeled by adjusting FF parametrizations consistent with rescaling QCD splitting functions. The parton spectrum is constrained by comparison with a p-p $p_t$ spectrum hard component. The refer…
In this contribution we present a status report on the recent progress towards an analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) using the NNPDF methodology. We discuss how the NNPDF fitting approach can be extended to account for the dependence on the atomic mass number $A$, and introduce novel algorithms to improve the training of the neural network parameters within the NNPDF framework. Finally, we present preliminary results of a nPDF fit to neutral current deep-inelastic lepton-nucleus scattering data, and demonstrate how one can validate the new fitting methodology by means of…
We report on recent calculations of the medium-induced gluon radiation off hard partons. The employed path-integral formalism reduces in limiting cases to the main ``jet quenching'' results of the existing literature. Moreover, it describes destructive interference effects between medium-independent and medium-induced radiation amplitudes. These affect the angular distribution and $L$-dependence of the medium-induced gluon bremsstrahlung spectrum significantly.
We analyze experimental data of nuclear structure function ratios $F_2^A/F_2^D$ for obtaining optimum parton distribution functions (PDFs) in nuclei. Then, uncertainties of the nuclear PDFs are estimated by the Hessian method. Parametrization of nuclear parton distribution is investigated in the leading order of $α_s$. The parton distribution are provided at $Q^2=1 GeV^2$ with a number of parameters, which are determined by a $χ^2$ analysis of the data on nuclear structure function. From the analysis, we propose parton distributions at $Q^2=1 GeV^2$ for nuclei from deuteron to heavy ones with …
We derive the two-plateau momentum distribution of final state (FS) quarks produced in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) off nuclei in the saturation regime. The diffractive plateau which dominates for small transverse momentum p measures precisely the momentum distribution of quarks in the beam photon, the role of the nucleus is simply to provide an opacity. The plateau for truly inelastic DIS exhibits a substantial nuclear broadening of the FS momentum distribution. We discuss the relationship between the FS quark densities and the properly defined initial state (IS) nuclear quark densities.Th…
Global perturbative QCD analyses, based on large data sets from electron-proton and hadron collider experiments, provide tight constraints on the parton distribution function (PDF) in the proton. The extension of these analyses to nuclear parton distributions (nPDF) has attracted much interest in recent years. nPDFs are needed as benchmarks for the characterization of hot QCD matter in nucleus-nucleus collisions, and attract further interest since they may show novel signatures of non-linear density-dependent QCD evolution. However, it is not known from first principles whether the factorizati…
We study nuclear effects of charged current deep inelastic neutrino-iron scattering in the framework of a chi^2 analysis of parton distribution functions (PDFs). We extract a set of iron PDFs which are used to compute x_Bj-dependent and Q^2-dependent nuclear correction factors for iron structure functions which are required in global analyses of free nucleon PDFs. We compare our results with nuclear correction factors from neutrino-nucleus scattering models and correction factors for charged lepton-iron scattering. We find that, except for very high x_Bj, our correction factors differ in both …
The angular structure of collisional and radiative energy losses of a hard parton jet propagating through the quark-gluon plasma is analyzed. The possibility to observe the energy losses of quark- and gluon-initiated jets in dense QCD-matter (jet quenching) measuring the characteristics of real hadronic jets in ultra-relativistic collisions of nuclei is investigated. In particular, using calorimetric studies of jet + jet, gamma + jet and Z + jet channels is discussed.
We demonstrate that strong suppression of the relative production rate (d+Au)/(p+p) of inclusive high-pT hadrons at forward rapidities observed at RHIC is due to parton multiple rescatterings in nuclear matter. The light-cone dipole approach-based calculations are in a good agreement with BRAHMS and STAR data. They also indicate a significant nuclear suppression at midrapidities with a weak onset of the coherence effects. This prediction is supported by the preliminary d+Au data from the PHENIX Collaboration. Moreover, since similar suppression pattern is also expected to show up at lower ener…
I review the current status of global analysis of nuclear parton distributions and discuss some near-future prospects. I also advocate proton-nucleus (p-$A$) measurements at the LHC with $A\ll 208$ from the viewpoint of nuclear parton distributions.
We present new sets of nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) at next-to-leading order (NLO) and next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). Our analyses are based on deeply inelastic scattering data with charged-lepton and neutrino beams on nuclear targets. In addition, a set of proton baseline PDFs is fitted within the same framework with the same theoretical assumptions. The results of this global QCD analysis are compared to existing nPDF sets and to the fitted cross sections. Also, the uncertainties resulting from the limited constraining power of the included experimental data are prese…
We study the structure of generalized parton distributions in spin 0 nuclei within a microscopic approach for nuclear dynamics. GPDs can be used on one side as tools to unravel the deep inelastic transverse structure of nuclei in terms of both transverse spatial and transverse momentum degrees of freedom. On the other, one can obtain information on GPDs themselves by observing how they become modified in the nuclear environment. We derive the structure of the nuclear deeply virtual Compton scattering tensor and generalized parton distributions at leading order in $Q$ in a field-theoretical fra…
A selection of recent data referring to Pb+Pb collisions at the SPS CERN energy of 158 GeV per nucleon is presented which might describe the state of highly excited strongly interacting matter both above and below the deconfinement to hadronization (phase) transition predicted by lattice QCD. A tentative picture emerges in which a partonic state is indeed formed in central Pb+Pb collisions which hadronizes at about T = 185 MeV, and expands its volume more than tenfold, cooling to about 120 MeV before hadronic collisions cease. We suggest further that all SPS collisions, from central S+S onward…
We perform a next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) using neutral current charged-lepton ($\ell ^\pm$ + nucleus) deeply inelastic scattering (DIS) data and Drell-Yan (DY) cross-section ratios $σ_{DY}^{A}/σ_{DY}^{A^\prime}$ for several nuclear targets. We study in detail the parametrizations and the atomic mass (A) dependence of the nuclear PDFs at this order. The present nuclear PDFs global analysis provides us a complete set of nuclear PDFs, $f_i^{(A,Z)}(x,Q^2)$, with a full functional dependence on $x$, A, Q$^2$. The uncertainties of th…
We present the new nCTEQ15 set of nuclear parton distribution functions with uncertainties. This fit extends the CTEQ proton PDFs to include the nuclear dependence using data on nuclei all the way up to 208^Pb. The uncertainties are determined using the Hessian method with an optimal rescaling of the eigenvectors to accurately represent the uncertainties for the chosen tolerance criteria. In addition to the Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) and Drell-Yan (DY) processes, we also include inclusive pion production data from RHIC to help constrain the nuclear gluon PDF. Furthermore, we investigate t…
The hydrodynamic (hydro) model has been extensively applied to heavy ion data from the relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC). Results are interpreted to conclude that a dense QCD medium nearly opaque to most partons, a strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma (sQGP), is formed in more-central Au-Au collisions. The sQGP may have a very small viscosity (``perfect liquid''). However, other analysis methods provide contradictory evidence. Two-component analysis of single-particle hadron spectra reveals a spectrum hard component consistent with a parton fragment distribution described by pQCD which can…
We present the nCTEQ15 global analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs). The main addition to the previous nCTEQ PDFs is the introduction of PDF uncertainties based on the Hessian method. Another important improvement is the inclusion of pion production data from RHIC giving us a handle to constrain gluon PDF. In this presentation we briefly discuss the framework of our analysis and concentrate on the comparison of our results with those of other groups. Additionally we show a first estimate of the impact of the LHC pPb W/Z boson production data on the presented nCTEQ15 PDFs.
Nuclear parton distributions $f_A(x,Q^2)$ are studied within a framework of the DGLAP evolution. Measurements of $F_2^A/F_2^D$ in deep inelastic $lA$ collisions, and Drell--Yan dilepton cross sections measured in $pA$ collisions are used as constraints. Also conservation of momentum and baryon number is required. It is shown that the calculated $Q^2$ evolution of $F_2^{\rm Sn}/F_2^{\rm C}$ agrees very well with the recent NMC data, and that the ratios $R_f^A=f_A/f$ are only moderately sensitive to the choice of a specific modern set of free parton distributions. For general use, we offer a num…
A new and simple statistical approach is performed to calculate the parton distribution functions (PDFs) of the nucleon in terms of light-front kinematic variables. Analytic expressions of x-dependent PDFs are obtained in the whole x region. And thereafter, we treat the temperature T as a parameter of the atomic number A to explain the nuclear EMC effect in the region $x \in [0.2, 0.7]$. We give the predictions of PDF ratios, and they are very different from those by other models, thus experiments aiming at measuring PDF ratios are suggested to provide a discrimination of different models.
Nuclear gluon modifications are the least constrained component of current global fits to nuclear parton distributions, due to the inadequate constraining power of presently available experimental data from nuclear deep inelastic scattering and nuclear Drell-Yan lepton-pair production. A recent advance is the use of observables from relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions to supplement the data pool for global fits. It is thus of interest to investigate the sensitivity of various experimental observables to different strengths of nuclear gluon modifications from large to small Bjorken $x$. In …
We derive a quantum mechanical upper bound on the amount of radiative energy loss suffered by high energy quarks and gluons in nuclear matter. The bound shows that the nuclear suppression observed in quarkonium production at high $x_F$ cannot be explained in terms of energy loss of the initial or final parton states. We also argue that no nuclear suppression is expected in the photoproduction of light hadrons at large $x_F$.
