Sea-quark flavor asymmetry in the nucleon from a relativistic analysis of the Drell-Yan scattering off nuclei

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that considering the relativistic structure of the deuteron explains the Drell-Yan cross-section ratio at low Bjorken x, refining the understanding of sea quark asymmetry in nucleons.

Contribution

It introduces a relativistic analysis of the deuteron to better interpret Drell-Yan data and reduce uncertainties in sea quark distribution measurements.

Findings

Relativistic effects explain the Drell-Yan ratio at low x.

The approach reduces theoretical uncertainties in sea quark asymmetry.

Clarifies the nature of sea quark flavor asymmetry in the nucleon.

Abstract

It is shown that accounting for the relativistic structure of the deuteron allows to explain the ratio of the Drell-Yan pair production cross-section at the low Bjorken $x$ off the deuteron and the proton. Thus, the sea quark distributions in the nucleon should be studied with accounting for the effects of the relativistic structure of the deuteron. The suggested approach reduces theoretical uncertainty in extracting the ratio $\bar u/\bar d$ from the data and it is important for the clarification of the nature of the sea quark asymmetry in the nucleon.