Imaging nuclear modifications on parton distributions with triple-differential dijet cross sections in proton-nucleus collisions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how triple-differential dijet cross sections in proton-nucleus collisions at the LHC can reveal nuclear modifications of parton distributions, using NLO pQCD calculations with various nPDF sets to identify differences and guide future measurements.

Contribution

It demonstrates that triple-differential dijet cross sections and their nuclear modification factors can effectively image nuclear effects on parton distributions, aiding in constraining nPDFs.

Findings

Different nPDF sets predict distinct nuclear modification factors.

Triple-differential cross sections can probe shadowing, anti-shadowing, EMC, and Fermi motion effects.

Future measurements can refine understanding of nuclear parton distributions.

Abstract

Dijet production in proton-nucleus ($p$A) collisions at the LHC provides invaluable information on the underlying parton distributions in nuclei, especially the gluon distributions. Triple-differential dijet cross sections enable a well-controlled kinematic scan (over momentum fraction $x$ and probing scale $Q^2$) of the nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs), i.e., $f^\textrm{A}_i(x,Q^2)$. In this work, we study several types of triple-differential cross sections for dijet production in proton-proton ($pp$) and proton-lead ($p$Pb) collisions at the LHC, to next-to-leading order within the framework of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD). Four sets of nPDF parametrizations, EPPS16, nCTEQ15, TUJU19, and nIMParton16 are employed in the calculations for $p$Pb collisions. We show that the observable nuclear modification factor $R_{p\textrm{Pb}}$ of such cross sections can serve as a nice image of the nuclear modifications on parton distributions, quantified by the ratio $r^{\textrm{A}}_i(x,Q^2)\!=\!f^\textrm{A,proton}_i(x,Q^2)/f^\textrm{proton}_i(x,Q^2)$. Considerable differences among the $R_{p\textrm{Pb}}$ predicted by the four nPDF sets can be observed and intuitively understood. Future measurements of such observables are expected to not only constrain the nPDF parametrizations, but also help confirm various nuclear effects, e.g., shadowing, anti-shadowing, EMC, and Fermi motion in different regions of $x$ and their variations with probing scale $Q^2$.