The production of charm quark jets in association with electroweak gauge bosons at the LHC can be used as a tool to constrain quark parton distribution functions (PDFs). Motivated by recent measurements at the Tevatron and LHC, we calculate cross sections for $W/Z+c$, comparing these to $W/Z+\mathrm{\text{jet}}$, for various PDF sets. The cross-section differences can be understood in terms of the different underlying PDFs, with the strange quark distribution being particularly important for $W+c$ production. We suggest measurements of appropriately defined ratios and comment on how these measurements at the LHC can be used to extract information on the strange and charm content of the proton at high $Q^2$ scales.

• Received 4 April 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.082002