Abstract
The proton is a composite particle in which the binding force is responsible for the majority of its mass. To understand this structure, the distributions and origins of the quark-antiquark pairs produced by the strong force must be measured. The SeaQuest collaboration is using the Drell-Yan process to elucidate antiquark distributions in the proton and to study their modification when the proton is held within a nucleus.
Highlights
Over the last half century, an understanding of the proton has developed in which it contains three valence quarks and an effervescing sea of antiquarks, quarks and gluons
To leading order in the strong coupling constant, αs, the Drell-Yan process is the annihilation of a quark from one hadron with an antiquark from another hadron into a massive virtual photon that decays into a detectable leptonantilepton pair, a process first observed by J.H
Where x1(2) represent Bjor√ken-x, xBj; qi(xi) is the parton distribution of quark of flavor q; eq is the charge of quark flavor q; s is the center-of-mass energy; αe ≈ 1/137 is the fine structure constant; and the sum is over all quark flavors
Summary
Over the last half century, an understanding of the proton has developed in which it contains three valence quarks and an effervescing sea of antiquarks, quarks and gluons. Measurements of the sea quarks are important, as they are manifestations of the effects of the strong force. The SeaQuest experiment was proposed to measure the distributions of sea quarks in the nucleon and the modifications of these distributions in nuclei.
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