Cold-nuclear-matter effects on heavy-quark production at forward and backward rapidity in d + Au collisions at √sNN = 200  GeV.

The PHENIX experiment has measured open heavy-flavor production via semileptonic decay over the transverse momentum range 1p(T)6  GeV/c at forward and backward rapidity (1.4|y|2.0) in d+Au and p + p collisions at √sNN = 200  GeV. In central d+Au collisions, relative to the yield in p + p collisions scaled by the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions, a suppression is observed at forward rapidity (in the d-going direction) and an enhancement at backward rapidity (in the Au-going direction). Predictions using nuclear-modified-parton-distribution functions, even with additional nuclear-p(T) broadening, cannot simultaneously reproduce the data at both rapidity ranges, which implies that t…