Next-to-Leading Order QCD Corrections to Inclusive Heavy-Flavor Production in Polarized Deep-Inelastic Scattering

TL;DR

This paper presents the first complete calculation of next-to-leading order QCD corrections for heavy flavor contributions to the polarized structure function g_1 in deep-inelastic scattering, including mass effects, with applications to future collider experiments.

Contribution

It provides the first full NLO QCD correction calculations for heavy flavor in polarized DIS, incorporating mass dependence with largely analytical methods.

Findings

Analytical expressions for NLO corrections including heavy quark mass effects.

Assessment of theoretical uncertainties from scale dependence.

Implications for polarized gluon distribution measurements at future colliders.

Abstract

We report on a recently completed, first calculation of the full next-to-leading order QCD corrections for heavy flavor contributions to the inclusive structure function $g_1$ in longitudinally polarized deep-inelastic scattering. All results are derived with largely analytical methods and retain the full dependence on the heavy quark's mass. As a first phenomenological application, inclusive charm production at a future electron-ion collider and its sensitivity to the polarized gluon distribution is studied. Theoretical uncertainties due to the residual dependence on unphysical factorization and renormalization scales are estimated.