  Global perturbative QCD analyses, based on large data sets from
electron-proton and hadron collider experiments, provide tight constraints on
the parton distribution function (PDF) in the proton. The extension of these
analyses to nuclear parton distributions (nPDF) has attracted much interest in
recent years. nPDFs are needed as benchmarks for the characterization of hot
QCD matter in nucleus-nucleus collisions, and attract further interest since
they may show novel signatures of non-linear density-dependent QCD evolution.
However, it is not known from first principles whether the factorization of
long-range phenomena into process-independent parton distribution, which
underlies global PDF extractions for the proton, extends to nuclear effects. As
a consequence, assessing the reliability of nPDFs for benchmark calculations
goes beyond testing the numerical accuracy of their extraction and requires
phenomenological tests of the factorization assumption. Here we argue that a
proton-nucleus collision program at the LHC would provide a set of measurements
allowing for unprecedented tests of the factorization assumption underlying
global nPDF fits.
