Pion-induced Drell-Yan processes and the flavor-dependent EMC effect

Abstract

Pion-induced Drell-Yan processes are proposed as a potential tool to measure the flavor dependence of the EMC effect, that is, the flavor-dependent modification of quark distributions in the nuclear medium. Existing pionic Drell-Yan data are compared with calculations using a recent model for nuclear quark distributions that incorporates flavor-dependent nuclear effects. While no firm conclusions can yet be drawn, we demonstrate that existing Drell-Yan data seem to imply a flavor dependence of the EMC effect. We highlight how pion-induced Drell-Yan experiments on nuclear targets can access important new aspects of the EMC effect, not probed in deep inelastic scattering, and will therefore provide very stringent constrains for models of nuclear quark distributions. Predictions for possible future pion-induced Drell-Yan experiments are also presented.

4 pages, 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (16)

• EPPS16: Nuclear parton distributions with LHC data
• nCTEQ15 - Global analysis of nuclear parton distributions with uncertainties in the CTEQ framework
• Explanation and Prediction of Observables using Continuum Strong QCD
• The Challenge of the EMC Effect: existing data and future directions
• Novel Phenomenology of Parton Distributions from the Drell-Yan Process
• Progress in understanding short-range structure in nuclei: an experimental perspective
• Parity-violating DIS and the flavour dependence of the EMC effect
• Relativistic and Nuclear Medium Effects on the Coulomb Sum Rule
• Exposing Novel Quark and Gluon Effects in Nuclei
• Semi-Inclusive Charged-Pion Electroproduction off Protons and Deuterons: Cross Sections, Ratios and Access to the Quark-Parton Model at Low Energies
• Searching for flavor dependence in nuclear quark behavior
• The pionic Drell-Yan process: a brief survey
• Applicability of pion-nucleus Drell-Yan data in global analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions
• Short-range correlations and their implications for isospin-dependent modification of nuclear quark distributions
• Flavor-dependent EMC effect from a nucleon swelling model
• Investigation of pionic contribution in the lepton and anti-lepton production cross section in p-Cu and p-Pt collision