Considering the nuclear reactions which involve specific features at certain regions of the $x$-Bjorken variable which was first observed by the EMC group, we indicate that the parton distributions in nuclei are not simply as the parton densities in nucleons. In addition to the most commonly analyzed data sets for deep-inelastic scattering of charged leptons off nuclei, we also analyze the Drell-Yan dilepton production. We investigate parametrizations of nuclear parton distributions at the next-to-leading order (NLO) of ${\alpha }_s$. Finally, optimum nuclear structure functions are determined by a ${\chi }^2$ analysis of experimental data for the nuclear structure function $F_2^A$/$F_2^{A^{\prime }}$ and Drell-Yan cross-section ratios. The related uncertainties are estimated by the Hessian method. Our results are in good agreement with the available experimental data and better than the results of some other fitting parametrization methods.

• Received 21 October 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.86.064301