The impact of future D- and B-meson measurements with the SMOG2 program at LHCb on the determination of nuclear parton distribution functions

Abstract

We perform an analysis of the potential impact of future D- and B-meson measurement within the SMOG2 fixed-target program at the LHCb experiment on nuclear parton distribution functions. Following [1], we assume that SMOG2 will collect data for five nuclear targets: He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe and hydrogen which will provide a baseline for constructing nuclear ratios. The analysis is performed by using the PDF reweighting method. We demonstrate that such a measurement will allow to considerably reduce the current uncertainties of the nuclear gluon distribution and, to some extent, even the uncertainties of the light sea-quark distributions. Furthermore, it will provide the first possibility to systematically study the current assumptions on the A-dependence of the nuclear parton distributions.