Nuclear modification of J/Psi and Drell-Yan production at the E906/SeaQuest experiment
- Michigan U.
A measurement of the suppression of J/Psi meson production in heavy ion interactions relative to their production in p+p interactions has been suggested to be an important probe in identifying the possible phase transition of hot nuclear matter to a quark-gluon plasma (QGP). A similar suppression effect has also been observed in cold nuclear matter (CNM) involving heavy nuclei, not due to QGP formation. Possible cold nuclear matter effects range from nuclear absorption, to parton energy loss, to modifications of nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs). This suppression and other signatures of CNM effects exhibit strong kinematic dependences with the Feynman-x (xF) and transverse momentum (pT) of the produced vector meson. In order to establish a baseline for different contributions to the nuclear modification of J/Psi production, direct comparison to the Drell-Yan process of quark-antiquark annihilation to dileptons, with little to no final state effects, provides very valuable information. We perform measurements seeking to obtain a better quantitative understanding of these nuclear effects in the E906/SeaQuest experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a fixed-target experiment that measures J/Psi, Psi’ and Drell-Yan (DY) signals from a 120-GeV proton beam colliding with protons and different nuclear targets. In this dissertation, we present measurements of the nuclear modification of J/Psi meson production and Drell-Yan pair production as a function of xF and pT at SeaQuest and we compare results from the experiment’s predecessor, E866/NuSea. Similar nuclear modification is observed for DY production while an additional suppression for J/Psi; meson production is observed in SeaQuest. These results shed light on the phenomenology of partons and partonic bound states in a variety of nuclear media.
- Research Organization:
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-07CH11359
- OSTI ID:
- 1637630
- Report Number(s):
- FERMILAB-THESIS-2020-07; oai:inspirehep.net:1801840
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Recent Measurement of Flavor Asymmetry of Antiquarks in the Proton by Drell–Yan Experiment SeaQuest at Fermilab
Measurement of Quark Energy Loss in Cold Nuclear Matter at Fermilab E906/SeaQuest