Studies of parton distributions at a neutrino factory

Abstract

The determination of parton distribution functions in the nucleon and nuclei is important for obtaining precise hadron-reaction cross sections, from which any new exotic signature could be found. We show that a future neutrino factory could provide important information on the parton distributions. First, a recent effort concerning the parametrization of nuclear parton distributions is explained. It suggests that the factory should be important for determining unknown behavior of valence-quark distributions in nuclei at small $x$. Second, the facility could be used for understanding nucleon spin structure and isospin violation in the parton distributions.