Parton distribution functions and nuclear EMC effect in a statistical model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple statistical model to calculate nucleon PDFs using light-front variables and explains the nuclear EMC effect by treating temperature as a function of atomic number, providing distinct predictions for PDF ratios.

Contribution

It presents a novel statistical approach to compute nucleon PDFs and models the nuclear EMC effect by linking temperature to atomic number, offering new testable predictions.

Findings

Derived analytic x-dependent PDFs across the entire x range.

Predicted PDF ratios significantly differ from existing models.

Suggested experiments to measure PDF ratios for model discrimination.

Abstract

A new and simple statistical approach is performed to calculate the parton distribution functions (PDFs) of the nucleon in terms of light-front kinematic variables. Analytic expressions of x-dependent PDFs are obtained in the whole x region. And thereafter, we treat the temperature T as a parameter of the atomic number A to explain the nuclear EMC effect in the region $x \in [0.2, 0.7]$. We give the predictions of PDF ratios, and they are very different from those by other models, thus experiments aiming at measuring PDF ratios are suggested to provide a discrimination of different models.