Charm jets as a probe for strangeness at the future Electron-Ion Collider

TL;DR

This paper investigates using charm-jet measurements at the future Electron-Ion Collider to probe the nucleon's strangeness content, emphasizing the method's potential for improving understanding of parton distributions.

Contribution

It demonstrates the feasibility and sensitivity of charm-jet cross section measurements in charged-current deep-inelastic scattering for constraining strange quark distributions.

Findings

Charm-jet tagging performance can be effectively estimated with detector simulations.

The proposed measurements are sensitive to different strange parton distribution scenarios.

This approach can significantly enhance future QCD global analyses.

Abstract

We explore the feasibility of the measurement of charm-jet cross sections in charged-current deep-inelastic scattering at the future Electron-Ion Collider. This channel provides clean sensitivity to the strangeness content of the nucleon in the high-$x$ region. We estimate charm-jet tagging performance with parametrized detector simulations. We show the expected sensitivity to various scenarios for strange parton distribution functions. We argue that this measurement will be key to future QCD global analyses, so it should inform EIC detector designs and luminosity requirements.