Nuclear medium effects in Drell-Yan process

TL;DR

This paper investigates nuclear medium effects on the Drell-Yan process at small target x, incorporating various nuclear phenomena and meson contributions, successfully explaining experimental results and aiding future analyses.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic nuclear model that accounts for Fermi motion, binding, correlations, meson contributions, and shadowing in Drell-Yan processes, aligning well with experimental data.

Findings

Successfully explains E772 and E866 Drell-Yan results at low x

Provides a comprehensive model for nuclear medium effects

Applicable to upcoming Sea Quest experiment analysis

Abstract

We study nuclear medium effects in Drell-Yan processes at small target x using quark parton distribution functions and nucleon structure functions for a bound nucleon calculated in a microscopic nuclear model which takes into account the effect of Fermi motion, nuclear binding and nucleon correlations through a relativistic spectral function. The contributions of $\pi$ and $\rho$ mesons, target mass corrections and nuclear shadowing are also included. The results are compared with the theoretical and experimental results. The model is able to successfully explain the low target x results of E772 and E866 Drell-Yan experiments and is applicable to the forthcoming experimental analysis of E906 Sea Quest experiment at Fermi Lab.