New constraints on nuclear parton distribution functions at small x from dijet production in photon-nucleus collisions at the LHC

Basic data for this project

Description

The main objectives of the proposed project are predictions for the cross section of dijet photoproduction in nucleus-nucleus and proton-nucleus ultraperipheral collisions at Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD, studies of the sensitivity of this cross section to the small-x effects of nuclear shadowing in nuclear parton distribution functions, and a quantitative analysis of the possibility to obtain new constraints on small-x nuclear parton distribution functions using this process. In addition, the relative merits of dijet production in photon-nucleus and proton-nucleus scattering for constraining small-x nuclear parton distribution functions will be compared, and predictions for dijet photoproduction in lepton-nucleus scattering at a future Electron Ion Collider (EIC) or Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC) will be made.