Inclusive jet production as a probe of polarized PDFs at a future EIC

TL;DR

This paper investigates how polarized inclusive jet production at a future Electron-Ion Collider can be used to probe the internal spin structure of protons and photons, employing next-to-leading order QCD calculations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive phenomenological analysis of polarized jet production at EIC, including all relevant channels and the impact of collision energy on polarized PDFs.

Findings

Different kinematic regions probe various aspects of proton and photon structure.

The EIC collision energy significantly affects the measurement sensitivity of polarized PDFs.

Next-to-leading order calculations improve the accuracy of the predictions.

Abstract

We present a detailed phenomenological study of polarized inclusive jet production in electron-proton collisions at a future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). Our analysis is performed at next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD using the numerical code DISTRESS and includes all relevant partonic channels and resolved photon contributions. We elucidate the role of different kinematic regions in probing different aspects of proton and photon structure and study the impact of the EIC collision energy on the measurement of polarized parton distribution functions.