Constraints for the nuclear sea quark distributions from the Drell-Yan process at the SPS

Citation
Kj. Eskola et al., Constraints for the nuclear sea quark distributions from the Drell-Yan process at the SPS, EUR PHY J C, 21(4), 2001, pp. 613-620
Citations number
33
Categorie Soggetti
Physics
Journal title
EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL C
ISSN journal
14346044 → ACNP
Volume
21
Issue
4
Year of publication
2001
Pages
613 - 620
Database
ISI
SICI code
1434-6044(200107)21:4<613:CFTNSQ>2.0.ZU;2-Q
Abstract
Nuclear modifications to the Drell-Yan dilepton production cross sections i n p + A and A + A collisions in the leading twist approximation are caused by nuclear effects in the parton distributions of bound nucleons. For non-i soscalar nuclei, isospin corrections must also be considered. We calculate these effects for p + A and Pb + Pb collisions at CERN SPS energies. Our go al is to place constraints on nuclear effects in sea quark distributions in the region x greater than or similar to 0.2. We show that the net nuclear corrections remain small for p + A collisions at E-lab = 450 GeV. However, in Pb + Pb collisions at E-lab = 158 AGeV, effects of greater than or simil ar to 20% are predicted at large M. The data collected by the NA50 collabor ation could thus be used to constrain the nuclear effects in the sea quark distributions in the region of the EMC effect, x greater than or similar to 0.3.