J/\psi\ and \psi' production in proton(deuteron)-nucleus collisions: lessons from RHIC for the proton-lead LHC run

TL;DR

This paper investigates various cold nuclear matter effects on J/ and ' production in proton(deuteron)-nucleus collisions, highlighting that current models cannot fully explain recent experimental suppression data from RHIC.

Contribution

The study provides a comprehensive analysis of cold nuclear matter effects and compares them with recent RHIC data, revealing gaps in existing theoretical explanations.

Findings

Gluon shadowing and nuclear absorption do not account for observed suppression.

Recent PHENIX data shows stronger ' suppression than models predict.

Current mechanisms fail to explain the large suppression in central dAu collisions.

Abstract

We study the impact of different cold nuclear matter effects both on J/\psi\ and \psi' production, among them the modification of the gluon distribution in bound nucleons, commonly known as gluon shadowing, and the survival probability for a bound state to escape the nucleus --the nuclear absorption. Less conventional effects such as saturation and fractional energy loss are also discussed. We pay a particular attention to the recent PHENIX preliminary data on \psi' production in dAu collisions at sqrt{s}=200 GeV, which show a strong suppression for central collisions, 5 times larger than the one obtained for J/\psi\ production at the same energy. We conclude that none of the abovementioned mechanisms can explain this experimental result.