Fixed-target charmonium production and pion parton distributions

Wen Chen Chang, Jen Chieh Peng, Stephane Platchkov, Takahiro Sawada

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We investigate how charmonium hadroproduction at fixed-target energies can be used to constrain the gluon distribution in pions. Using nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD) formulation, the J/ψ and ψ(2S) cross sections as a function of longitudinal momentum fraction xF from pions and protons colliding with light targets, as well as the ψ(2S) to J/ψ cross section ratios, are included in the analysis. The color-octet long-distance matrix elements are found to have a pronounced dependence on the pion parton distribution functions (PDFs). This study shows that the xF differential cross sections of pion-induced charmonium production impose strong constraints on the pion's quark and gluon PDFs. In particular, the pion PDFs with larger gluon densities provide a significantly better description of the data. It is also found that the production of the ψ(2S) state is associated with a larger quark-antiquark contribution, compared with J/ψ.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number056008
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume107
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2023

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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