Nuclear medium effects in Drell-Yan process

Abstract

We study nuclear medium effects in Drell-Yan processes at small target x using quark parton distribution functions and nucleon structure functions for a bound nucleon calculated in a microscopic nuclear model which takes into account the effect of Fermi motion, nuclear binding and nucleon correlations through a relativistic spectral function. The contributions of $π$ and $ρ$ mesons, target mass corrections and nuclear shadowing are also included. The results are compared with the theoretical and experimental results. The model is able to successfully explain the low target x results of E772 and E866 Drell-Yan experiments and is applicable to the forthcoming experimental analysis of E906 Sea Quest experiment at Fermi Lab.

5 pages, 4 figures