LHC data and its impact on nCTEQ15 PDFs

TL;DR

This paper discusses how LHC heavy ion data on W/Z production can improve the determination of parton distribution functions, especially for strange and charm quarks, in the small x region, by providing new insights beyond previous data.

Contribution

It introduces the potential of LHC heavy ion data to refine flavor separation in PDFs and improve nuclear correction models for better accuracy.

Findings

LHC data offers new constraints on strange and charm quark PDFs.

Enhanced nuclear corrections can improve flavor separation in PDFs.

Small x region PDFs can be better determined with this data.

Abstract

The LHC heavy ion data for W/Z production can provide new incisive information on the PDFs. This data is sensitive to the heavier quark flavors (strange and charm) in a high energy kinematic region; this can facilitate the determination of PDFs in the small x region where previous data was limited. At present, the flavor separation of the proton PDFs is dependent on DIS data from nuclear targets. Therefore, improved nuclear corrections can also yield enhanced flavor determination of both the proton and nuclear PDFs.