No Arabic abstract
Nuclear gluon modifications are the least constrained component of current global fits to nuclear parton distributions, due to the inadequate constraining power of presently available experimental data from nuclear deep inelastic scattering and nuclear Drell-Yan lepton-pair production. A recent advance is the use of observables from relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions to supplement the data pool for global fits. It is thus of interest to investigate the sensitivity of various experimental observables to different strengths of nuclear gluon modifications from large to small Bjorken $x$. In this work we utilize three recent global fits with different gluon strengths to investigate the sensitivity of three observables: nuclear modification factor, pseudorapidity asymmetry, and charge ratio. We observe that both nuclear modification factor and pseudorapidity asymmetry are quite sensitive to the strength of gluon modifications in a wide pseudorapidity interval. The sensitivity is greatly enhanced at LHC (Large Hadron Collider) energies relative to that at RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider). The charge ratio is mildly sensitive only at large Bjorken x. Thus measurement of these observables in proton-lead collisions at the LHC affords the potential to further constrain gluon modifications in global fits.
We calculate nuclear modification factors $R_{dAu}$, central-to-peripheral ratios, $R_{CP}$, and pseudorapidity asymmetries $Y_{Asym}$ in deuteron-gold collisions at $sqrt{s} = 200$ GeV in the framework of leading-order (LO) perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics. We use the Eskola-Kolhinen-Salgado (EKS), the Frankfurt-Guzey-Strikman (FGS) and the Hirai-Kumano-Nagai (HKN) nuclear parton distribution functions and the Albino-Kramer-Kniehl (AKK) fragmentation functions in our calculations. Results are compared to experimental data from the BRAHMS and STAR collaborations.
Global perturbative QCD analyses, based on large data sets from electron-proton and hadron collider experiments, provide tight constraints on the parton distribution function (PDF) in the proton. The extension of these analyses to nuclear parton distributions (nPDF) has attracted much interest in recent years. nPDFs are needed as benchmarks for the characterization of hot QCD matter in nucleus-nucleus collisions, and attract further interest since they may show novel signatures of non-linear density-dependent QCD evolution. However, it is not known from first principles whether the factorization of long-range phenomena into process-independent parton distribution, which underlies global PDF extractions for the proton, extends to nuclear effects. As a consequence, assessing the reliability of nPDFs for benchmark calculations goes beyond testing the numerical accuracy of their extraction and requires phenomenological tests of the factorization assumption. Here we argue that a proton-nucleus collision program at the LHC would provide a set of measurements allowing for unprecedented tests of the factorization assumption underlying global nPDF fits.
Global perturbative QCD analyses, based on large data sets from electron-proton and hadron collider experiments, provide tight constraints on the parton distribution function (PDF) in the proton. The extension of these analyses to nuclear parton distributions (nPDF) has attracted much interest in recent years. nPDFs are needed as benchmarks for the characterization of hot QCD matter in nucleus-nucleus collisions, and attract further interest since they may show novel signatures of non- linear density-dependent QCD evolution. However, it is not known from first principles whether the factorization of long-range phenomena into process-independent parton distribution, which underlies global PDF extractions for the proton, extends to nuclear effects. As a consequence, assessing the reliability of nPDFs for benchmark calculations goes beyond testing the numerical accuracy of their extraction and requires phenomenological tests of the factorization assumption. Here we argue that a proton-nucleus collision program at the LHC would provide a set of measurements allowing for unprecedented tests of the factorization assumption underlying global nPDF fits.
The pseudorapidity distributions of charged particles measured in p+p($rm overline{p}$) collisions for energies ranging from $sqrt{s_{NN}}=23.6$ GeV to 13 TeV, d+Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV, p+Pb collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}}= 5.02$ TeV and A+A collisions at RHIC and LHC are investigated in the fireball model with Tsallis thermodynamics. We assume that the rapidity axis is populated with fireballs following q-Gaussian distribution and the charged particles follow the Tsallis distribution in the fireball. The theoretical results are in good agreement with the experimental data for all the collision systems and centralities investigated. The collision energy and centrality dependence of the central position $y_0$ and its width $sigma$ of the fireball distribution are also investigated. A possible application of the model to predict the charged particle pseudorapidity distributions for the system size scan program proposed recently for the STAR experiment at RHIC is proposed.
The PHENIX experiment has studied nuclear effects in $p$$+$Al and $p$$+$Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV on charged hadron production at forward rapidity ($1.4<eta<2.4$, $p$-going direction) and backward rapidity ($-2.2<eta<-1.2$, $A$-going direction). Such effects are quantified by measuring nuclear modification factors as a function of transverse momentum and pseudorapidity in various collision multiplicity selections. In central $p$$+$Al and $p$$+$Au collisions, a suppression (enhancement) is observed at forward (backward) rapidity compared to the binary scaled yields in $p$+$p$ collisions. The magnitude of enhancement at backward rapidity is larger in $p$$+$Au collisions than in $p$$+$Al collisions, which have a smaller number of participating nucleons. However, the results at forward rapidity show a similar suppression within uncertainties. The results in the integrated centrality are compared with calculations using nuclear parton distribution functions, which show a reasonable agreement at the forward rapidity but fail to describe the backward rapidity enhancement.