Energy loss effect of incoming gluons from J/ψ production in p-A collisions

The energy loss effect of incoming gluons from J/ψ production in p-A(or d-A) collisions is investigated by means of the E866, RHIC and LHC experimental data. The gluon mean energy loss per unit path length d E/d L = 2.18 ± 0.14 Ge V/fm is extracted by fitting the E866 experimental data for J/ψ production cross section ratios R W(Fe)/Be(x F). The obtained result indicates that the incoming gluons lose more energy than the incident quarks. By comparing the theoretical results with E866, RHIC, and LHC experimental data, it is found that the nuclear suppression due to the incident gluon(quark) energy loss reduces(increases) with the increase of the kinematic variable x F(or y). The energy loss effect of incoming gluons plays an important role in the suppression of J/ψ production in a wide energy range from√s = 38.7 Ge V to√s = 5.0 Te V, and the influence of incident quark energy loss can be ignored for high energies(such as at RHIC and LHC energy).     

Energy loss of charm quarks from J/ψ production in cold nuclear matter

J/ψ suppression in p-A collisions is studied by considering the nuclear effects on parton distribution,energy loss of beam proton and the finial state energy loss of color octet cc. The leading-order computations for J/ψproduction cross-section ratios RW/Be(x F) are presented and compared with the selected E866 experimental data with the cc remaining colored on its entire path in the medium. It is shown that the combination of the different nuclear effects accounts quite well for the observed J/ψ suppression in the experimental data. It is found that the J/ψ suppression on RW/Be(x F) from the initial state nuclear effects is more important than that induced by the energy loss of color octet cc in the large x F region. Whether the cc pair energy loss is linear or quadratic with the path length is not determined. The obtained cc pair energy loss per unit path length α = 2.78±0.81 Ge V/fm, which indicates that the heavy quark in cold nuclear matter can lose more energy compared to the outgoing light quark.     

Energy loss of charm quarks from J/ψ production incold nuclear matter

J/ψ suppression in p-A collisions is studied by considering the nuclear effects on parton distribution, energy loss of beam proton and the finial state energy loss of color octet cc. The leading-order computations for J/ψ production cross-section ratios R_W/Be(x_F) are presented and compared with the selected E866 experimental data with the cc remaining colored on its entire path in the medium. It is shown that the combination of the different nuclear effects accounts quite well for the observed J/ψ suppression in the experimental data. It is found that the J/ψ suppression on R_W/Be(x_F) from the initial state nuclear effects is more important than that induced by the energy loss of color octet cc in the large x_F region. Whether the cc pair energy loss is linear or quadratic with the path length is not determined. The obtained cc pair energy loss per unit path length α=2.78±0.81 GeV/fm, which indicates that the heavy quark in cold nuclear matter can lose more energy compared to the outgoing light quark.     

xF （or y）-Dependence of Nuclear Absorption and Energy Loss Effects on J/ψ Production

By means of the nuclear parton distribution studied only with lepton deep-inelastic scattering experimental data, the J/ψ ＂normal nuclear absorption＂ and energy loss effects are studied in a GIauber formalism at HERA and RHIC energies. Assuming that the absorption cross section σabs increases with the charmonium-nucleon center of mass energy, the results reveal a significant dependence of the aabs on rapidity g at RHIC energies. The initial-state energy loss effect, which is found important only at HERA energies, is also considered, and its influence should be eliminated when we studied the absorption effect at low collision energies. Finally, we also present the theoretical prediction for LHC.     

Quark Energy Loss and Shadowing in Nuclear Drell-Yan Process

The energy loss effect in nuclear matter is another nuclear effect apart from the nuclear effects on the parton distribution as in deep inelastic scattering process. The quark energy loss can be measured best by the nuclear dependence of the high energy nuclear Dre11-Yan process. By means of three kinds of quark energy loss parameterizations given in literature and the nuclear parton distribution extracted only with lepton-nucleus deep inelastic scattering experimental data, measured Dre11-Yan production cross sections are analyzed for 800 GeV proton incident on a variety of nuclear targets from FNAL E866. It is shown that our results with considering the energy loss effect are much different from those of the FNAL E866, who analyzes the experimental data with the nuclear parton distribution functions obtained by using the deep inelastic IA collisions and pA nuclear Drell-Yan data. Considering the existence of energy loss effect in Drell-Yan lepton pairs production, we suggest that the extraction of nuclear parton distribution functions shoul““““d not include Dre11-Yan experimental data.     

J/ψ-N center of mass energy dependence of nuclear absorption effect on J/ψ production

In this paper, the J/ψ nuclear absorption effect is studied at RHIC and LHC energies with the EKS98 shadowing parameterizations. By assuming that the J/ψ absorption cross section, σ abs , increases with the charmonium-nucleon （J/ψ-N） center of mass energy, s J/ψN , it is found that σ abs should depend on x F （or y） at a certain center of mass energy per nucleon pair,s , especially at LHC energies. The theoretical results with the x F （or y）-dependence of the absorption effect are in good agreement with the experiment data from PHENIX in d-Au collisions and the predicted results will be examined by the forthcoming experimental data from LHC in d-Pb collisions. Finally, we also present baseline calculations of cold nuclear matter effects on J/ψ production in nucleus-nucleus （A-A） collisions and find that the x F （or y）-dependence of absorption effect is very small at both RHIC and LHC energies in A-A collisions.     

J/ψ-N center of mass energy dependence of nuclear absorption effect on J/ψ production

In this paper, the J/ψ nuclear absorption effect is studied at RHIC and LHC energies with the EKS98 shadowing parameterizations. By assuming that the J/ψ absorption cross section, σ abs , increases with the charmonium-nucleon (J/ψ-N) center of mass energy, s J/ψN , it is found that σ abs should depend on x F (or y) at a certain center of mass energy per nucleon pair,s , especially at LHC energies. The theoretical results with the x F (or y)-dependence of the absorption effect are in good agreement with the experiment data from PHENIX in d-Au collisions and the predicted results will be examined by the forthcoming experimental data from LHC in d-Pb collisions. Finally, we also present baseline calculations of cold nuclear matter effects on J/ψ production in nucleus-nucleus (A-A) collisions and find that the x F (or y)-dependence of absorption effect is very small at both RHIC and LHC energies in A-A collisions.     

Drell-Yan nuclear modification due to nuclear effects of nPDFs and initial-state parton energy loss

By globally analyzing nuclear Drell-Yan data including all incident energies,the nuclear effects of nuclear parton distribution functions(nPDFs)and initial-state parton energy loss are investigated.Based on the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal(LPM)regime,the calculations are carried out by means of analytic parametrizations of quenching weights derived from the Baier-Dokshitzer-Mueller-Peigné-Schiff(BDMPS)formalism and using the new EPPS16 nPDFs.It is found that the results are in good agreement with the data and the role of the energy loss effect in the suppression of Drell-Yan ratios is prominent,especially for low-mass Drell-Yan measurements.Thenuclear effects of nPDFs become more obvious with increasing nuclear mass number A,the same as the energy loss effect.By a global fit,the transport coefficient extracted is q=0.26±0.04 GeV²/fm.In addition,to avoid diminishing the QCD NLO correction to the data form of Drell-Yan ratios,separate calculations of the Compton differentialcross section ratios RFe(W)/C(xF)at 120 GeV are performed,which provides a feasible way to better distinguish the gluon energy loss in Compton scattering.It is found that the role of the initial-state gluon energy loss in the suppression of Compton scattering ratios is not very important and disappears with the increase of xF.     

Influence of quark energy loss on extracting nuclear sea quark distribution from nuclear Drell-Yan experimental data

By means of two typical kinds of quark energy loss parametrization and the nuclear parton distributions determined only with lepton-nuclear deep inelastic scattering experimental data, a leading order analysis is performed on the proton-induced Drell-Yan differential cross section ratios of tungsten versus deuterium as a function of the quark momentum fraction in the beam proton and target nuclei. It is found that the theoretical results with quark energy loss are in good agreement with the experimental data. The quark energy loss effect produces approximately 3% to 11% suppression on the Drell-Yan differential cross section ratios R_W/D in the range 0.05≤x₂≤0.3. The application of nuclear Drell-Yan data with heavy targets is remarkably subject to difficulty in the constraint of the nuclear sea quark distribution.     

Cold nuclear matter effects on J/ψ production in d-Au collisions

The medium modifications of J/ψ production in d-Au collisions at √s_NN=200 GeV are studied in the Glauber model. By means of the c.m. energy loss parameter per collision studied in Drell-Yan process, taking account of the inhomogeneous shadowing effect, we find that the initial-state energy loss effect can be ignored in d-Au collisions at mid-rapidity. Then, the final-state J/ψ absorption effect is also considered and the theoretical results are in good agreement with the recent experimental data given by PHENIX. Finally, the experimental results of J/ψ production in d-Pb collisions are also predicted at RHIC and LHC energies respectively.     

Nuclear effects on J/ψ production in proton–nucleus collisions

The study of nuclear effects for J/ψ production in proton–nucleus collisions is crucial for a correct interpretation of the J/ψ suppression patterns experimentally observed in heavy-ion collisions. By means of three representative sets of nuclear parton distribution, the energy loss effect in the initial state and the nuclear absorption effect in the final state are taken into account in the uniform framework of the Glauber model. A leading order phenomenological analysis is performed on J/ψ production cross-section ratios R _W/Be (x _F) for the E866 experimental data. The J/ψ suppression is investigated quantitatively due to the different nuclear effects. It is shown that the energy loss effect with resulting in the suppression on R _W/Be (x _F) is more important than the nuclear effects on parton distributions in high x _F region. The E866 data in the small x _F keep out the nuclear gluon distribution with a large anti-shadowing effect. However, the new HERA-B measurement is not in support of the anti-shadowing effect in the nuclear gluon distribution. It is found that the J/ψ–nucleon inelastic cross section $\sigma^{J/\psi}_{\mathrm{abs}}$ depends on the kinematical variable x _F, and increases as x _F in the region x _F>0.2.     

Nuclear parton distribution functions and energy-loss effect in the Drell-Yan reaction off nuclei

The energy-loss effect in nuclear matter is another nuclear effect apart from the nuclear effects on the parton distribution as in deep inelastic scattering process. The quark energy loss can be measured best by the nuclear dependence of the high energy nuclear Drell-Yan process. By means of two typical kinds of quark energy-loss parametrization and the different sets of nuclear parton distribution functions, we present an analysis of the E866 experiments on the nuclear dependence of Drell-Yan lepton pair production resulting from the bombardment of Be, Fe and W targets by 800 GeV protons at Fermilab. It is found that the quark energy loss in cold nuclei is strongly dependent on the used nuclear parton distribution functions. The further prospects of using relatively low energy protons incident on nuclear targets are presented by combining the quark energy-loss rate determined from a fit to the E866 nuclear-dependent ratios versus x ₁, with the nuclear parton distribution functions given from lA deep inelastic scattering (DIS) data. The experimental study of the relatively low energy nuclear Drell-Yan process can give valuable insight in the energy loss of the fast quark propagating through cold nuclei and help to pin down nuclear parton distribution functions.Received: 8 September 2004, Revised: 18 October 2004, Published online: 11 January 2005PACS: 24.85. + p, 13.85.Qk, 25.40.-h, 25.75.Nq     

J/ψ production as a probe of charge symmetry violations and nuclear corrections in parton distributions

We investigate the sensitivity of J/Ψ production in proton-neutron and proton-deuteron collisions to charge symmetry violations in the parton distributions as well as to nuclear corrections. It is found that the effects of charge symmetry violations in the quark distributions are confined to large x _F and difficult to measure in experiments currently being planned. However, from proton-deuteron experiments it should be possible to isolate nuclear corrections to the gluon distribution.     

Shadowing effects on quark and gluon production in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions

A framework for including shadowing effects to quark and gluon production in very high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions is given. A formalism for impact parameter dependent nuclear structure functions of partons is introduced and, using two models to describe the average shadowing corrections to the parton number densities, the average numbers and the transverse energy spectrum of hard partons produced inU+U collisions at RHIC and LHC energies are computed. We conclude that shadowing and also the impact parameter dependence of structure functions should be taken into account at very high energies.     

Parton energy loss in glasma

We study the synchrotron-like gluon emission in AA-collisions from fast partons due to interaction with the coherent glasma color fields. Our results show that for RHIC and LHC conditions the contribution of this mechanism to parton energy loss is much smaller than the radiative energy loss in the plasma phase.     

A possible determination of the quark radiation length in cold nuclear matter

We calculate the differential Drell-Yan production cross section in proton-nucleus collisions by including both next-to-leading order perturbative effects and effects of the nuclear medium. We demonstrate that dilepton production in fixed target experiments is an excellent tool to study initial-state parton energy loss in large nuclei and to accurately determine the stopping power of cold nuclear matter. We provide theoretical predictions for the attenuation of the Drell-Yan cross section at large values of Feynman xF and show that for low proton beam energies experimental measurements at Fermilab?s E906 can clearly distinguish between nuclear shadowing and energy loss effects. If confirmed by data, our results may help determine the quark radiation length in cold nuclear matter X₀∼¹⁰−13 m.     

Parton rearrangement and fast thermalization in heavyion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies

The implications of parton rearrangement processes on the dynamics of ultra-relativistic heavyion collisions have been investigated. A microscopic transport approach, namely the quark gluon string model (QGSM) which has been extended for a locally density-dependent partonic rearrangement and fusion procedure served as the tool for this investigations. The model emulates effectively the dynamics of a strongly coupled quark plasma and final hadronic interactions. Main QGSM results on anisotropic flow components v ₁ and v ₂ at top RHIC energy are compiled. Predictions for the pseudorapidity dependence of directed and elliptic flow in Pb+Pb collisions under LHC conditions are presented.     

Quark Energy Loss and Shadowing in Nuclear Drell-Yan Process

The energy loss effect in nuclear matter is another nuclear effect apart from the nuclear effects on the parton distribution as in deep inelastic scattering process. The quark energy loss can be measured best by the nuclear dependence of the high energy nuclear Drell-Yan process. By means of three kinds of quark energy loss parameterizations given in literature and the nuclear parton distribution extracted only with lepton-nucleus deep inelastic scattering experimental data, measured Drell-Yan production cross sections are analyzed for 800 GeV proton incident on a variety of nuclear targets from FNAL E866. It is shown that our results with considering the energy loss effect are much different from those of the FNAL E866, who analyzes the experimental data with the nuclear parton distribution functions obtained by using the deep inelastic IA collisions and pA nuclear Drell-Yan data. Considering the existence of energy loss effect in Drell-Yan lepton pairs production, we suggest that the extraction of nuclear parton distribution functions should not include Drell-Yan experimental data.     

Jet quenching with running coupling including radiative and collisional energy losses

We calculate the nuclear modification factor for RHIC and LHC conditions accounting for the radiative and collisional parton energy loss with the running coupling constant. We find that the RHIC data can be explained both in the scenario with the chemically equilibrium quark-gluon plasma and purely gluonic plasma with slightly different thermal suppression of the coupling constant. The role of the parton energy gain due to gluon absorption is also investigated. Our results show that the energy gain gives negligible effect. The article is published in the original.