The RHIC Cold QCD Plan for 2017 to 2023: A Portal to the EIC

TL;DR

This paper outlines a comprehensive pre-EIC experimental program at RHIC focusing on p+p and p+A collisions to complement future electron-ion collider research, aiming to deepen understanding of QCD.

Contribution

It proposes a detailed measurement program at RHIC to support and enhance the scientific goals of the upcoming EIC, emphasizing the importance of hadronic collision data.

Findings

Establishes the necessity of pre-EIC measurements for QCD studies.

Defines experimental requirements for future EIC physics.

Highlights the discovery potential in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions.

Abstract

The exploration of the fundamental structure of strongly interacting matter has always thrived on the complementarity of lepton scattering and purely hadronic probes. As the community eagerly anticipates a future electron ion collider (EIC) in the U.S., an outstanding scientific opportunity remains to complete "must-do" measurements in p+p and p+A physics in the years preceding the EIC. As we describe in this document, these measurements will be essential to fully realize the scientific promise of the EIC by provid-ing a comprehensive set of measurements in hadronic collisions that, when combined with data from the EIC, will establish the validity and limits of factorization and universality. The outlined program will on the one hand lay the groundwork for the EIC, both scientifically and in terms of refining the experimental requirements for the physics program at the EIC, and thus be the natural next step on the path towards an electron-ion collider. On the other hand, while much of the physics in this program is unique to proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions and offers discovery potential on its own, when combined with data from the EIC it will provide a broad foundation to a deeper understanding of fundamental QCD.