Determination of nuclear parton distributions

Abstract

Parametrization of nuclear parton distributions is investigated in the leading order of alpha_s. The parton distributions are provided at Q^2=1 GeV^2 with a number of parameters, which are determined by a chi^2 analysis of the data on nuclear structure functions. Quadratic or cubic functional form is assumed for the initial distributions. Although valence quark distributions in the medium x region are relatively well determined, the small x distributions depend slightly on the assumed functional form. It is difficult to determine the antiquark distributions at medium x and gluon distributions. From the analysis, we propose parton distributions at Q^2=1 GeV^2 for nuclei from deuteron to heavy ones with the mass number A~208. They are provided either analytical expressions or computer subroutines for practical usage. Our studies should be important for understanding the physics mechanism of the nuclear modification and also for applications to heavy-ion reactions. This kind of nuclear parametrization should also affect existing parametrization studies in the nucleon because "nuclear" data are partially used for obtaining the optimum distributions in the "nucleon".