Shadowing Effects on Vector Boson Production

Abstract

We explore how nuclear modifications to the nucleon structure functions, shadowing, affect massive gauge boson production in heavy ion collisions at different impact parameters. We calculate the dependence of $Z^0$, $W^{+}$ and $W^{-}$ production on rapidity and impact parameter to next-to-leading order in Pb+Pb collisions at 5.5 TeV/nucleon to study quark shadowing at high $Q^2$. We also compare our Pb+Pb results to the $pp$ rapidity distributions at 14 TeV.

Comments: 25 pages ReVTeX, 12 .eps figures, NLO included, version accepted for publication in Physical Review C