Deuteron Uncertainties in the Determination of Proton PDFs

Abstract

We evaluate the uncertainties due to nuclear effects in global fits of proton parton distribution functions (PDFs) that utilise deep-inelastic scattering and Drell-Yan data on deuterium targets. To do this we use an iterative procedure to determine proton and deuteron PDFs simultaneously, each including the uncertainties in the other. We apply this procedure to determine the nuclear uncertainties in the SLAC, BCDMS, NMC and DYE866/NuSea fixed target deuteron data included in the NNPDF3.1 global fit. We show that the effect of the nuclear uncertainty on the proton PDFs is small, and that the increase in overall uncertainties is insignificant once we correct for nuclear effects.

Version accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J. C; typo in Table 3 corrected; discussion about previous NNPDF studies added; various minor points clarified

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• Parton distributions with scale uncertainties: a MonteCarlo sampling approach
• Deuterium scattering experiments in CTEQ global QCD analyses: a comparative investigation
• Nuclear effects in the deuteron and global QCD analyses
• Future tests of parton distributions
• A Stress Test of Global PDF Fits: Closure Testing the MSHT PDFs and a First Direct Comparison to the Neural Net Approach
• Extraction of the neutron F2 structure function from inclusive proton and deuteron deep-inelastic scattering data
• A new generation of simultaneous fits to LHC data using deep learning
• Exploring the substructure of nucleons and nuclei with machine learning