Physics – High Energy Physics – High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Scientific paper
1996-04-19
Phys.Rev.C54:2606-2623,1996
Physics
High Energy Physics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
32 pages, latex, 19 figures
Scientific paper
10.1103/PhysRevC.54.2606
Measurements of dilepton production from charm decay and Drell-Yan processes respectively probe the gluon and sea quark distributions in hadronic collisions. In nucleus-nucleus collisions, these hard scattering processes constitute a `background' to thermal contributions from the hot matter produced by the collision. To determine the magnitude and behavior of this background, we calculate the hard scattering contribution to dilepton production in nuclear collisions at RHIC and LHC at next to leading order in perturbative QCD. Invariant mass, rapidity and transverse momentum distributions are presented. We compare these results to optimistic hydrodynamic estimates of the thermal dilepton production. We find that charm production from hard scattering is by far the dominant contribution. Experiments therefore can measure the gluon distribution in the nuclear target and projectile and, consequently, can provide new information on gluon shadowing. We then illustrate how experimental cuts on the rapidity gap between the leptons can aid in reducing the charm background, thereby enhancing thermal information.
Gavin Sean
McGaughey P. L.
Ruuskanen P. V.
Vogt Rainer
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