EPPS16 - Bringing nuclear PDFs to the LHC era

We report on EPPS16, the first global analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) to include LHC data. Also for the first time, a full flavour dependence of nPDFs is allowed. While the included Z and W data are found to have insufficient statistics to yield stringent constraints, the CMS 5.02 TeV proton-lead dijet data prove crucial in setting the shape of nuclear gluon modifications. With these and other observables being measured in proton-lead runs, we are experiencing a shift of nPDFs to the LHC precision era.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Prepared for the proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on High-pT Physics in the RHIC/LHC Er

Non-quadratic improved Hessian PDF reweighting and application to CMS dijet measurements at 5.02 TeV

Hessian PDF reweighting, or profiling, has become a widely used way to study the impact of a new data set on parton distribution functions (PDFs) with Hessian error sets. The available implementations of this method have resorted to a perfectly quadratic approximation of the initial 2 function before inclusion of the new data. We demonstrate how one can take into account the first non-quadratic components of the original fit in the reweighting, provided that the necessary information is available. We then apply this method to the CMS measurement of dijet pseudorapidity spectra in proton-proton (pp) and proton-lead (pPb) collisions at 5.02 TeV. The measured pp dijet spectra disagree with next-to-leading order (NLO) theory calculations using the CT14 NLO PDFs, but upon reweighting the CT14 PDFs, these can be brought to a much better agreement. We show that the needed proton-PDF modifications also have a significant impact on the predictions for the pPb dijet distributions. Taking the ratio of the individual spectra, the proton-PDF uncertainties effectively cancel, giving a clean probe of the PDF nuclear modifications. We show that these data can be used to further constrain the EPPS16 nuclear PDFs and strongly support gluon nuclear shadowing at small x and antishadowing at around x approximate to 0.1.Peer reviewe

Applicability of pion-nucleus Drell-Yan data in global analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions

Despite the success of modern nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) in describing nuclear hard-process data, they still suffer from large uncertainties. One of the poorly constrained features is the possible asymmetry in nuclear modifications of valence u and d quarks. We study the possibility of using pion-nucleus Drell-Yan dilepton data as a new constraint in the global analysis of nPDFs. We find that the nuclear cross-section ratios from the NA3, NA10 and E615 experiments can be used without imposing significant new theoretical uncertainties and, in particular, that these datasets may have some constraining power on the u/d-asymmetryin nuclei. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

The EPPS16 nuclear PDFs

We report on EPPS16 - the first analysis of NLO nuclear PDFs where LHC p-Pb data (Z, W, dijets) have been directly used as a constraint. In comparison to our previous fit EPS09, also data from neutrino-nucleus deeply-inelastic scattering and pion-nucleus Drell-Yan process are now included. Much of the theory framework has also been updated from EPS09, including a consistent treatment of heavy quarks in deeply-inelastic scattering. However, the most notable change is that we no longer assume flavour-blind nuclear modifications for valence and sea quarks. This significantly reduces the theoretical bias. All the analysed data are well reproduced and the analysis thereby supports the validity of collinear factorization in high-energy collisions involving heavy nuclei. However, flavour by flavour, the uncertainties are still rather large. © 2017 Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).Peer reviewe

A QCD analysis of LHCb D-meson data in p plus Pb collisions

We scrutinize the recent LHCb data for D-0-meson production in p+Pb collisions within a next-to-leading order QCD framework. Our calculations are performed in the SACOT-m(T) variant of the general-mass variable-flavour-number scheme (GM-VFNS), which has previously been shown to provide a realistic description of the LHC p+p data. Using the EPPS16 and nCTEQ15 nuclear parton distribution functions (PDFs) we show that a very good agreement is obtained also in the p+Pb case both for cross sections and nuclear modification ratios in the wide rapidity range covered by the LHCb data. Encouraged by the good correspondence, we quantify the impact of these data on the nuclear PDFs by the Hessian reweighting technique. We find compelling direct evidence of gluon shadowing at small momentum fractions x, with no signs of parton dynamics beyond the collinear factorization. We also compare our theoretical framework to a fixed-order calculation supplemented with a parton shower. While the two frameworks differ in the absolute cross sections, these differences largely cancel in the nuclear modification ratios. Thus, the constraints for nuclear PDFs appear solid.Peer reviewe

Impact of dijet and D-meson data from 5.02 TeV p+Pb collisions on nuclear PDFs

We discuss the new constraints on gluon parton distribution function (PDF) in lead nucleus, derivable with the Hessian PDF reweighting method from the 5.02 TeV p+Pb measurements of dijet (CMS) and D-0-meson (LHCb) nuclear modification ratios. The impact is found to be significant, placing stringent constraints in the mid- and previously unconstrained small-x regions. The CMS dijet data confirm the existence of gluon anti-shadowing and the onset of small-x shadowing, as well as reduce the gluon PDF uncertainties in the larger-x region. The gluon constraints from the LHCb D-0 data, reaching down to x similar to 10(-5) and derived in a NLO perturbative QCD approach, provide a remarkable reduction of the small-x uncertainties with a strong direct evidence of gluon shadowing. Furthermore, we find a good description of the data even down to zero D-0-meson transverse momentum within a purely DGLAP-based approach without a need for imposing any non-linear effects. Importantly, the constraints obtained from the dijet and D-0 data are mutually fully consistent, supporting the universality of nuclear PDFs in hard-scattering processes.Peer reviewe

Epps16 ⇓ first nuclear pdfs to include lhc data

We present results of our recent EPPS16 global analysis of NLO nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs). For the first time, dijet and heavy gauge boson production data from LHC proton–lead collisions have been included in a global fit. Especially, the CMS dijets play an important role in constraining the nuclear effects in gluon distributions. With the inclusion of also neutrino–nucleus deeply-inelastic scattering and pion–nucleus Drell–Yan data and a proper treatment of isospin-corrected data, we were able to free the flavor dependence of the valence and sea quark nuclear modifications for the first time. This gives us less biased, yet larger, flavor by flavor uncertainty estimates. The EPPS16 analysis indicates no tension between the data sets used, which supports the validity of collinear factorization and universal nPDFs for nuclear hard-collision processes in the kinematical range studied. © Copyright owned by the author(s).Peer reviewe

Towards EPPS21 nuclear PDFs

We report on the progress in updating our global analysis of nuclear PDFs. In particular, we will discuss the inclusion of double differential 5.02 TeV dijet and D-meson measurements, as well as 8.16 TeV W-production data from p-Pb collisions at the LHC. The new EPPS21 analysis will also involve recent JLab data for deep-inelastic scattering. As a novel aspect within our approach, we now also quantify the impact of free-proton PDF uncertainties on our extraction of nuclear PDFs.Comment: Submission to SciPost, 7 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings for the XXVIII International Workshop on Deep-Inelastic Scattering and Related Subject