ABSTRACT: Mesons composed of heavy quark-antiquark pairs, known as quarkonia, provide the only direct probe of the screening length in the deconfined state of quarks and gluons, known as the quark gluon plasma (QGP), which is believed to be produced in high energy heavy ion collisions. However, the observation of suppression of quarkonia production in heavy ion collisions at high energies is complicated by the modification of quarkonia production in normal nuclear matter. Measuring the modification of quarkonia production due to the effects of normal nuclear matter, often termed cold nuclear matter (CNM) effects, provide a critical baseline for understanding the properties of the QGP. Measurements of CNM effects on quarkonia production are also interesting in their own right, and can be measured independently in proton-nucleus (p+A) collisions. The modification of quarkonia production in p+A collisions provides insight into quarkonia production mechanisms unavailable through the study of proton-proton collisions alone. The study of quarkonia production in p+A collisions over a wide range of kinematic variables can also provide constraints on the modification of parton distribution functions in nuclei. In order to quantify the CNM effects present at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), the PHENIX experiment has recorded data on d+Au collisions at \sqsn=200 GeV. The analysis of J/psi→e+e- and psi'→e+e- production from that data set is presented here. Both J/psi and psi' production are found to be suppressed in d+Au relative to p+p collisions, with the suppression increasing for collisions with small impact parameters. The psi' production is found to be much more suppressed than J/psi production, a result which is unexpected based on measurements at lower collision energy and present theoretical pictures. A parametrization of the J/psi modification measured by PHENIX in terms of two CNM effects is also presented. One is the nuclear breakup of the forming quarkonium state through collisions with nucleons during the d+Au collision. The other is the modification of the gluon distribution in the Au nucleus. It is found that the two effects can be separated due to the very different impact parameter dependencies. A strongly non-linear geometric dependence on the modification of the gluon distribution function is observed, with the modification found to be concentrated near the center of the Au nucleus. This parametrization is also used to estimate the modification of J/psi production in Au+Au collisions due to CNM effects. This modification is compared to PHENIX measurements of J/psi production in Au+Au collisions. Suppression of J/psi production in Au+Au collisions beyond CNM effects is observed. This excess suppression is interpreted as suppression of J/psi production due to the formation of a QGP.

We present a wide study on the comparison of different shadowing models and their influence on J/[psi] production. We have taken into account the possibility of different partonic processes for the c{bar c}-pair production. We notice that the effect of shadowing corrections on J/[psi] production clearly depends on the partonic process considered. Our results are compared to the available data on dAu collisions at RHIC energies. We try different break up cross section for each of the studied shadowing models.

We have carried out a wide study of Cold Nuclear Matter (CNM) effects on J/? = production in dAu, CuCu and AuAu collisions at √s{sub NN} = 200 GeV. We have studied the effects of three different gluon-shadowing parameterizations, using the usual simplified kinematics for which the momentum of the gluon recoiling against the J/? is neglected as well as an exact kinematics for a 2 → 2 process, namely g + g → J/? + g as expected from LO pQCD. We have shown that the rapidity distribution of the nuclear modification factor R{sub dAu}, and particularly its anti-shadowing peak, is systematically shifted toward larger rapidities in the 2 → 2 kinematics, irrespective of which shadowing parameterization is used. In turn, we have noted differences in the effective final-state nuclear absorption needed to fit the PHENIX dAu data. Taking advantage of our implementation of a 2 → 2 kinematics, we have also computed the transverse momentum dependence of the nuclear modification factor, which cannot be predicted with the usual simplified kinematics. All the corresponding observables have been computed for CuCu and AuAu collisions and compared to the PHENIX and STAR data. Finally, we have extracted the effective nuclear absorption from the recent measurements of RCP in dAu collisions by the PHENIX collaboration.

We have carried out a wide study of Cold Nuclear Matter (CNM) effects on J/[Psi] = production in dAu, CuCu and AuAu collisions at √s{sub NN} = 200 GeV. We have studied the effects of three different gluon-shadowing parameterizations, using the usual simplified kinematics for which the momentum of the gluon recoiling against the J/[Psi] is neglected as well as an exact kinematics for a 2 → 2 process, namely g + g → J/[psi] + g as expected from LO pQCD. We have shown that the rapidity distribution of the nuclear modification factor R{sub dAu}, and particularly its anti-shadowing peak, is systematically shifted toward larger rapidities in the 2 → 2 kinematics, irrespective of which shadowing parameterization is used. In turn, we have noted differences in the effective final-state nuclear absorption needed to fit the PHENIX dAu data. Taking advantage of our implementation of a 2 → 2 kinematics, we have also computed the transverse momentum dependence of the nuclear modification factor, which cannot be predicted with the usual simplified kinematics. All the corresponding observables have been computed for CuCu and AuAu collisions and compared to the PHENIX and STAR data. Finally, we have extracted the effective nuclear absorption from the recent measurements of RCP in dAu collisions by the PHENIX collaboration.

In heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and the LHC, a suppression of the nuclear modification factor for jets along with other strongly interacting particles has been observed relative to proton-proton collisions. To unambiguously determine if this suppression is due to the creation of a strongly interacting medium of de-confied partons referred to as the Quark-Gluon Plasma, or due to Cold Nuclear Matter effects, a "control experiment" is required. Proton-lead collisions serve as this control experiment, because these colli- sions are expected to be sensitive to cold nuclear matter effects while not producing a QGP at this collision energy ({591}sNN = 5.02 TeV). Presented in this defense are the first measurements of charged + neutral jets in p-Pb collisions using the ALICE detector at the LHC. Measurements of CNM effects are done via the nuclear modification factor for jets: RpPb, RCP, and the jet structure ratio. Measurements of the jet spectrum along with a detailed and proper discussion of the statistical, systematic, and normalization uncertain- ties will be presented. Also a comparison of RpPb and RCP measured in this analysis to other measured RpPb and RCP from ATLAS and CMS will be presented. All the measurements performed in this analysis indicate that no strong cold nuclear matter effects are observed in p-Pb collisions using the ALICE detector at the LHC.