Global analyses of nuclear PDFs with heavy-quark and neutrino data

TL;DR

This paper presents recent global analyses of nuclear parton distribution functions using diverse experimental data, significantly reducing uncertainties and refining the understanding of gluon and strange quark densities in nuclei.

Contribution

It introduces updated nuclear PDFs incorporating LHC and neutrino data, improving precision and consistency over previous models.

Findings

Gluon uncertainties reduced to x≥10^{-5}

Strange quark density constrained by neutrino data

Consistency of charm dimuon data with neutral-current experiments re-evaluated

Abstract

We discuss the two most recent global analyses of nuclear parton distribution functions within the nCTEQ approach. LHC data on $W/Z$-boson, single-inclusive hadron and heavy quark/quarkonium production are shown to not only significantly reduce the gluon uncertainty down to $x\geq10^{-5}$, but to also influence the strange quark density. The latter is further constrained by neutrino deep-inelastic scattering and charm dimuon production data, whose consistency with neutral-current experiments is also re-evaluated.