Determination of Strange Sea Quark Distributions from Fixed-target and Collider Data

TL;DR

This paper refines the understanding of strange quark distributions in the nucleon by integrating diverse experimental data from neutrino scattering, HERA, and collider experiments, highlighting consistency across multiple measurements.

Contribution

It provides an improved, data-driven determination of the strange sea quark distribution incorporating recent experimental results from various high-energy physics experiments.

Findings

Results are consistent with ATLAS and CMS data on W boson and charm production.

The strange sea distribution is better constrained with recent charm production data.

Discussion includes issues related to LHC-based strange sea measurements.

Abstract

We present an improved determination of the strange sea distribution in the nucleon with constraints coming from the recent charm production data in neutrino-nucleon deep-inelastic scattering by the NOMAD and CHORUS experiments and from charged current inclusive deep-inelastic scattering at HERA. We demonstrate that the results are consistent with the data from the ATLAS and the CMS experiments on the associated production of $W^\pm$-bosons with $c$-quarks. We also discuss issues related to the recent strange sea determination by the ATLAS experiment using LHC collider data.