Gluon distributions in nuclei probed at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

Abstract

Using updated gluon distributions from global fits to data, we investigate the sensitivity of direct photoproduction of heavy quarks and exclusive production of vector mesons to varying strength of gluon modifications. Implications of using these processes for constraining nuclear gluon distributions are discussed.

Comments: 10 pages, 8 figures; additional results, comments, and references; accepted for publication in Physical Review C