Nuclear gluons at RHIC in a multi-observable approach

Understand

We explore the possibility of measuring nuclear gluon distributions at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) with $\sqrt{s}=200 \, {\rm GeV}$ proton-nucleus collisions.

• In addition to measurements at central rapidity, we consider also observables at forward rapidity, consistent with proposed upgrades to the experimental capabilities of STAR and sPHENIX.
• The processes we consider consist of Drell-Yan dilepton, dijet, and direct photon-jet production.
• The Drell-Yan process is found to be an efficient probe of gluons at small momentum fractions.