Gluino production in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions and nuclear shadowing

Abstract

In this article we investigate the influence of nuclear effects in the production of gluinos in nuclear collisions at the LHC, and estimate the transverse momentum dependence of the nuclear ratios $R_{pA} = {\frac{d\sigma (pA)}{dy d^2 p_T}} / A {\frac{d\sigma (pp)}{dy d^2 p_T}}$ and $R_{AA} = {\frac{d\sigma (AA)}{dy d^2 p_T}} / A^2 {\frac{d\sigma (pp)}{dy d^2 p_T}}$. We demonstrate that depending on the magnitude of the nuclear effects, the production of gluinos could be enhanced, compared to proton-proton collisions. The study of these observables can be useful to determine the magnitude of the shadowing and antishadowing effects in the nuclear gluon distribution. Moreover, we test different SPS scenarios, corresponding to different soft SUSY breaking mechanisms, and find that the nuclear ratios are strongly dependent on that choice.