Probing superfast quarks in nuclei through dijet production at the LHC

Abstract

We investigate dijet production from proton-nucleus collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as a means for observing superfast quarks in nuclei with Bjorken $x>1$. Kinematically, superfast quarks can be identified through directly measurable jet kinematics. Dynamically, their description requires understanding several elusive properties of nuclear QCD, such as nuclear forces at very short distances, as well as medium modification of parton distributions in nuclei. In the present work, we develop a model for nuclear parton distributions at large $x$ in which the nuclear dynamics at short distance scales are described by two- and three-nucleon short range correlations (SRCs). Nuclear modifications are accounted for using the color screening model, and an improved description of the EMC effect is reached by using a structure function parametrization that includes higher-twist contributions. We apply QCD evolution at the leading order to obtain nuclear parton distributions in the kinematic regime of the LHC, and based on the obtained distributions calculate the cross section for dijet production. We find not only that superfast quarks can be observed at the LHC, but also that they provide sensitivity to the practically unexplored three-nucleon SRCs in nuclei. Additionally, the LHC can extend our knowledge of the EMC effect to large $Q^2$ where higher-twist effects are negligible.

44 pages, 17 figures, final version to be published in EJPC

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• EPS09 - a New Generation of NLO and LO Nuclear Parton Distribution Functions
• Probing Cold Dense Nuclear Matter
• Determination of nuclear parton distribution functions and their uncertainties at next-to-leading order
• Momentum sharing in imbalanced Fermi systems
• Evidence for the Strong Dominance of Proton-Neutron Correlations in Nuclei
• Recent observation of short range nucleon correlations in nuclei and their implications for the structure of nuclei and neutron stars
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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Nucleon-Nucleon Correlations, Short-lived Excitations, and the Quarks Within
• Progress in understanding short-range structure in nuclei: an experimental perspective
• New Results on Short-Range Correlations in Nuclei
• Evidence for x-dependent proton color fluctuations in pA collisions at the LHC
• Multi-Nucleon Short-Range Correlation Model for Nuclear Spectral Functions: I. Theoretical Framework
• Searching for three-nucleon short-range correlations
• Target mass corrections in lepton--nucleus DIS: theory and applications to nuclear PDFs
• QCD Evolution of Superfast Quarks
• Hard processes in small systems
• Hard Photodisintegration of 3He into pd pair