Scale evolution of nuclear parton distributions Original Research Article

Using the NMC and E665 nuclear structure function ratios F2A/F2D and F2A/F2C from deep inelastic lepton-nucleus collisions, and the E772 Drell-Yan dilepton cross sections from proton-nucleus collisions, and incorporating baryon number and momentum sum rules, we determine nuclear parton distributions at an initial scale Q02. With these distributions, we study QCD scale evolution of nuclear parton densities. The emphasis is on small values of x, especially on scale dependence of nuclear shadowing. As the main result, we show that a consistent picture can be obtained within the leading twist DGLAP evolution, and in particular, that the calculated Q2 dependence of F2Sn/F2C agrees very well with the recent NMC data.