Kinematic distributions and nuclear effects of J/psi production in 920 GeV fixed-target proton-nucleus collisions

Measurements of the kinematic distributions of J/ψ mesons produced in p–C, p–Ti and p–W collisions at \(\sqrt{s}=41.6~\mathrm{GeV}\) in the Feynman-x region −0.34HERA-B experiment at the HERA proton ring of the DESY laboratory. The measurement explores the negative region of xF for the first time. The average value of α in the measured xF region is 0.981±0.015. The data suggest that the strong nuclear suppression of J/ψ production previously observed at high xF turns into an enhancement at negative xF.