Probing the Small-$x$ Gluon Tomography in Correlated Hard Diffractive Dijet Production in DIS

TL;DR

This paper proposes an experimental approach at future electron-ion colliders to explore the three-dimensional gluon structure inside protons at small-x by analyzing angular correlations in diffractive dijet production, linking quantum phase space distributions to observable signals.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental method to probe the gluon Wigner distribution through diffractive dijet measurements, connecting theory with potential collider observations.

Findings

Proposes angular correlation measurements as a probe of gluon phase space.

Links the Wigner distribution to observable diffractive dijet signals.

Highlights the potential to image gluons in three dimensions at small-x.

Abstract

We investigate the close connection between the quantum phase space Wigner distribution of small-$x$ gluons and the color dipole scattering amplitude, and propose to study it experimentally in the hard diffractive dijet production at the planned electron-ion collider. The angular correlation between the nucleon recoiled momentum and the dijet transverse momentum will probe the nontrivial correlation in the phase space Wigner distribution. This experimental study will not only provide us with three-dimensional tomographic pictures of gluons inside high energy proton, but also give a unique and interesting signal for the small-$x$ dynamics with QCD evolution effects.