PRODUCTION OF THE W AND Z BOSONS IN THE NUCLEON-(ANTI)NUCLEON COLLISIONS AND THE MESON CLOUD IN THE NUCLEON

摘要

We investigate possible consequences of the meson cloud in the nucleon for the production of the W and Z bosons in hadron-hadron collisions. We start from the description of the muon and charged-current (anti)neutrino deep-inelastic scattering. We get a good description of the total W and Z production cross sections measured in the proton-antiproton collisions by the UA1 and UA2 Collaborations at CERN and the CDF Collaboration at FNAL as well as the lepton asymmetry obtained recently by the CDF Collaboration. Our model predicts an enhancement of the cross section for the W boson production in proton-proton collisions in comparison to proton-antiproton collisions. The charge lepton asymmetry measured recently by the CDF Collaboration can be described only if meson cloud effects are included explicitly. We critically study a possibility to test the (d) over bar-(u) over bar asymmetry in the nucleon by the analysis of various asymmetries possible to measure in principle at RHIC. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. [References: 57]