Inhomogeneous shadowing and energy loss effects in Drell–Yan processes

Abstract

By means of the nuclear parton distribution studied only with lepton deep-inelastic scattering experimental data, the effect of spatially inhomogeneous shadowing is studied in the p-A Drell-Yan dimuon production process. Using multiple soft rescattering theory, the initial state energy loss effect is also considered within the Glauber framework. The calculated results are compared to the E772 and E866 data. It is shown that the theoretical results while considering the energy loss effect are in good agreement with the experimental data. In this paper, we also compare the calculated results of inhomogeneous shadowing with those of homogeneous and find that the inhomogeneous shadowing results exhibit a stronger energy loss effect than the homogeneous results at the same parameter.

A possible determination of the quark radiation length in cold nuclear matter

“…The final-state particles do not interact strongly with the nuclear medium, providing a relatively clean experimental signature. Still, definitive separation of leading-twist shadowing effects [21][22][23] and parton energy loss [12,[24][25][26][27] has so far proven challenging [28,29]. In no small part this difficulty arises from the fact that the very same Drell-Yan data in protonnucleus (p+A) reactions is used to constrain the shadowing parameterizations [30].…”

Cold nuclear matter effects on J/ψ production in d-Au collisions

“…Thus the effect should be sensitive to the impact parameter, b, at which the collision occurs. Central collisions with low impact parameter should exhibit stronger shadowing effects than collisions in the nuclear periphery [4] .…”

“…In an inelastic collision between nucleus A and B, the probability of having n collisions also depends on the impact parameter b, which will make inhomogeneous shadowing more important. In this paper, the inhomogeneous shadowing effect, which can enhance the energy loss effect in Drell-Yan process [4] , is also discussed on J/ψ production in d-Au collisions.…”

Drell-Yan dilepton production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC

“…To study the formation and the properties of the QGP we need to have a reliable control of the initial-state CNM effects. The dilepton production of the Drell-Yan process with the large invariant mass in high-energy nuclear reactions therefore provides an excellent channel for studying the initial-state CNM effects because dilepton at large invariant mass does not interact with the hot QCD medium strongly and could disentangle the final-state QGP medium effects from the initial-state CNM effects [5][6][7][8].…”