Nuclear effects in the proton-deuteron Drell-Yan process

Journal Article · Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Phys. Rev. D

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.90.014010· OSTI ID:1136405

Ehlers, Peter J. ^[1]; Accardi, Alberto ^[2]; Brady, Lucas T.; Melnitchouk, Wally ^[3]

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1. Univ. Washington
2. Hampton U., JLAB
3. JLAB

We compute the nuclear corrections to the proton-deuteron Drell-Yan cross section for inclusive dilepton production, which, when combined with the proton-proton cross section, is used to determine the flavor asymmetry in the proton sea, dbar - ubar. In addition to nuclear smearing corrections that are known to be important at large values of the nucleon's parton momentum fraction x_N, we also consider dynamical off-shell nucleon corrections associated with the modifications of the bound nucleon structure inside the deuteron, which we find to be significant at intermediate and large x_N values. We also provide estimates of the nuclear corrections at kinematics corresponding to existing and planned Drell-Yan experiments at Fermilab and J-PARC which aim to determine the dbar/ubar ratio for x < 0.6.

• Research Organization: Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-06OR23177
• OSTI ID: 1136405
• Report Number(s): JLAB-THY-14-1874; DOE/OR/23177-3051; arXiv:1405.2039
• Journal Information: Phys. Rev. D, Vol. 90, Issue 01
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English