Diffractive deeply inelastic scattering in future electron-ion colliders

TL;DR

This paper predicts how nonlinear QCD effects influence diffractive observables in future electron-ion colliders, emphasizing the importance of nuclear vs. proton comparisons for understanding parton dynamics.

Contribution

First predictions for diffractive structure functions using the BK equation with impact-parameter dependence in electron-ion collisions.

Findings

Diffractive event contributions are enhanced in nuclear collisions.

The ratio of nuclear to proton predictions can discriminate between models.

Study constrains QCD dynamics in parton densities.

Abstract

The impact of nonlinear effects in the diffractive observables that will be measured in future electron-ion collisions is investigated. We present, for the first time, the predictions for the diffractive structure function and reduced cross sections derived using the solution to the Balitsky--Kovchegov equation with the collinearly-improved kernel and including the impact-parameter dependence. We demonstrate that the contribution of the diffractive events is enhanced in nuclear collisions and that the study of the ratio between the nuclear and proton predictions will be useful to discriminate among different models of the dipole-target scattering amplitude and, consequently, will allow us to constrain the description of QCD dynamics in parton densities.