Measuring double-parton distributions in nucleons at proton-nucleus colliders

Phys Rev Lett. 2002 Jan 21;88(3):031801. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.031801. Epub 2002 Jan 2.

Abstract

We predict a strong enhancement of multijet production in proton-nucleus collisions at collider energies, as compared to a naive expectation of a cross section similar to A. The study of the process would allow one to measure, for the first time, the double-parton distribution functions in a nucleon in a model-independent way and hence to study both the longitudinal and the transverse correlations of partons.