The uncertainties due to quark energy loss on determining nuclear sea quark distribution from nuclear Drell-Yan data

Abstract

By means of two different parametrizations of quark energy loss and the nuclear parton distributions determined only with lepton-nuclear deep inelastic scattering experimental data, a leading order phenomenological analysis is performed on the nuclear Drell-Yan differential cross section ratios as a function of the quark momentum fraction in the beam proton and target nuclei for E772 experimental data. It is shown that there is the quark energy loss effect in nuclear Drell-Yan process apart from the nuclear effects on the parton distribution as in deep inelastic scattering. The uncertainties due to quark energy loss effect is quantified on determining nuclear sea quark distribution by using nuclear Drell-Yan data. It is found that the quark energy loss effect on nuclear Drell-Yan cross section ratios make greater with the increase of quark momentum fraction in the target nuclei. The uncertainties from quark energy loss become bigger as the nucleus A come to be heavier. The Drell-Yan data on proton incident middle and heavy nuclei versus deuterium would result in an overestimate for nuclear modifications on sea quark distribution functions with neglecting the quark energy loss. Our results are hoped to provide good directional information on the magnitude and form of nuclear modifications on sea quark distribution functions by means of the nuclear Drell-Yan experimental data.

16 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Determination of nuclear parton distribution functions and their uncertainties at next-to-leading order
• A global reanalysis of nuclear parton distribution functions
• Nuclear parton distribution functions and energy loss effect in the Drell-Yan reaction off nuclei
• The extraction of nuclear sea quark distribution and energy loss effect in Drell-Yan experiment

Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Quark energy loss in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering of leptons on nuclei
• Nuclear effects on J/ψ production in proton-nucleus collisions
• Nuclear medium effects in Drell-Yan process
• Hadron formation in semi-inclusive deep inelastic lepton-nucleus scattering
• A systematic study of initial state quark energy loss in fixed target proton nucleus collision
• Atomic mass dependence of hadron production in semi-inclusive deep inelastic lepton-nucleus scattering
• Bjorken variable and scale dependence of quark transport coefficient in Drell-Yan process for proton incident on nucleus
• Energy loss of charm quarks from $J/\psi$ production in cold nuclear matter
• Atomic mass, Bjorken variable and scale dependence of quark transport coefficient in Drell-Yan process for proton incident on nucleus
• The study of gluon energy loss in cold nuclear matter from $J/\psi$ production