Measurement of Upsilon Production for p+p and p+d Interactions at 800 GeV

Abstract

We report a high statistics measurement of Upsilon production with an 800 GeV/c proton beam on hydrogen and deuterium targets. The dominance of the gluon-gluon fusion process for Upsilon production at this energy implies that the cross section ratio, $σ(p + d \to Υ) / 2σ(p + p\to Υ)$, is sensitive to the gluon content in the neutron relative to that in the proton. Over the kinematic region 0 < x_F < 0.6, this ratio is found to be consistent with unity, in striking contrast to the behavior of the Drell-Yan cross section ratio $σ(p+d)_{DY}/2σ(p+p)_{DY}$. This result shows that the gluon distributions in the proton and neutron are very similar. The Upsilon production cross sections are also compared with the p+d and p+Cu cross sections from earlier measurements.

4 pages, 5 figures. Submitted for journal publication