Measurement of the Absolute Drell-Yan Dimuon Cross Section in 800 GeV/c Proton-Proton and Proton-Deuterium Collisions

摘要

The Fermilab E866/NuSea Collaboration has measured the Drell-Yan dimuon cross sections in 800 GeV/c proton-proton and proton-deuterium collisions. This is the first measurement of the absolute Drell-Yan cross section in proton-proton collisions over a broad kinematic region and the most extensive study to date of the Drell-Yan cross section in proton-deuterium collisions. The Drell-Yan mechanism is sensitive to both the beam and target parton distributions. In particular, with the kinematics of the E866/NuSea data, the Drell-Yan mechanism is sensitive to the target antiquark distributions at low and intermediate Bjorken-x and to the beam quark distributions at high-x. Approximately 55K proton-proton and 121K proton-deuterium Drell-Yan events over the longitudinal momentum fraction (Feynman-x) range -0.05 < x_F < 0.8 and the mass ranges 4.2 < M_(μ~+μ~-)