The strange parton distribution of the nucleon: global analysis and applications

Abstract

The strange parton distribution of the nucleon: global analysis and applications The strange parton distribution of the nucleon: global analysis and applications Abstract: The strangeness degrees of freedom in the parton structure of the nucleon are explored in the global analysis framework, using the new CTEQ6.5 implementation of the general mass perturbative QCD formalism of Collins. We systematically determine the constraining power of available hard scattering experimental data on the magnitude and shape of the strange quark and anti-quark parton distributions. We find that current data favor a distinct shape of the strange sea compared to the isoscalar non-strange sea. A new reference parton distribution set, CTEQ6.5S0, and representative sets spanning the allowed ranges of magnitude and shape of the strange distributions, are presented. Some applications to physical processes of current interest in hadron collider phenomenology are discussed.

Precision determination of electroweak parameters and the strange content of the proton from neutrino deep-inelastic scattering

“…We find that the shape of the strange and antistrange distributions which are compatible with data are rather more general than those obtained in other recent studies [11][12][13][14][15]17]. Our uncertainty on the ratio K S = [S + ] / Ū +D of strange to light sea momenta is rather more asymmetric than hitherto assumed: K S Q 2 = 20 GeV 2 = 0.71 +0.19 −0.31 stat .…”

“…In previous parton fits, a range of possible shapes of the strange PDFs was explored by assuming different functional forms and studying the variation of results [13]. The s ± (x, Q 2 0 ), s(x, Q 2 0 ) ands(x, Q 2 0 ) strange PDFs Eq.…”

Charm parton content of the nucleon

“…As a natural extension of the CTEQ6.5 global analysis [4,12], we have determined the range of magnitudes for intrinsic charm that is consistent with an up-to-date global QCD analysis of hard-scattering data, for various plausible assumptions on the shape of the x-distribution of IC at a low factorization scale.…”

“…1 Recent advances on both fronts make this study now possible. In the following, we extend the recent CTEQ6.5 global analysis [4,12] to include a charm sector with its own independent degrees of freedom at the initial factorization scale µ 0 = m c . We shall address the questions posed in the introduction by examining the results of global analyses performed under three representative scenarios.…”

Determination of strange sea quark distributions from fixed-target and collider data

“…and was proposed for a study of the strange distribution and asymmetry earlier [47][48][49]. The LHC measurements of associated production of W-bosons and charm quarks probe the strange quark distribution in the kinematic region of x ≈ 0.012 at the scale Q 2 ¼ M 2 W .…”