Nuclear Parton Distributions at the future Electron-Ion Collider

TL;DR

The paper discusses how the future Electron-Ion Collider will significantly advance our understanding of nuclear structure by providing high-precision measurements of nuclear parton distribution functions, especially at small Bjorken x.

Contribution

It evaluates the potential of the EIC to constrain nuclear parton distribution functions through deep inelastic scattering measurements, including heavy quark production.

Findings

EIC can improve constraints on nuclear PDFs at small x.

EIC measurements will enhance understanding of nuclear structure functions.

Heavy quark production data at EIC will provide additional insights.

Abstract

The 2015 nuclear physics long-range plan endorsed the realization of an Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) as the next large construction project after the completion of FRIB. With its high luminosity ( $> 10^{33} cm^{-2}s^{-1}$), wide kinematic reach in center-of-mass-energy (45GeV to 145GeV) and high lepton and proton beam polarization, an EIC provides an unprecedented opportunity to reach new frontiers in our understanding of the spin and dynamic structure of nuclei. Despite of the success of the HERA collider in investigating the structure of a single nucleon, the partonic structure of nuclei at moderate-to-small Bjorken's $x$ still remains elusive. We present the evaluated impact of an EIC in extracting the nuclear structure-functions from measurements of the reduced cross section in deep inelastic scattering, including also the case of measuring heavy quark production events. The potential constraints offered by the EIC data in extracting the nuclear parton distribution functions is also discussed.