Coherently diffractive dissociation in electron-hadron collisions: from HERA to the future EIC

TL;DR

This paper uses nonlinear QCD evolution equations to predict diffractive dissociation in electron-hadron collisions, successfully describing HERA data and forecasting significant nuclear effects at the future Electron-Ion Collider.

Contribution

It applies the Kovchegov-Levin equation with running coupling to diffractive scattering, extending the analysis from proton to nuclear targets with the Glauber model.

Findings

Good agreement with HERA diffractive structure function data.

Prediction of strong nuclear modifications in diffractive scattering at EIC.

Extension of nonlinear evolution to nuclear targets.

Abstract

We present numerical results on diffractive dissociation with large invariant mass diffractive final states in the scattering of an electron off a hadron. The diffractive large-mass resummation is performed using the nonlinear Kovchegov-Levin equation, taking into account running coupling corrections. For the scattering off the proton, a (modified) McLerran-Venugopalan amplitude is used as the initial condition for the nonlinear evolution, with free parameters being constrained by the HERA inclusive data. The results show a reasonable description of the HERA diffractive structure function data at moderately large diffractive mass when the impact parameter profile is constrained by the low-mass diffractive cross section data. The calculation is extended to nuclear scattering, where the initial condition is generalized from the proton case employing the optical Glauber model. The nonlinear large-mass resummation predicts a strong nuclear modification in diffractive scattering off a nuclear target in kinematics accessible at the future Electron-Ion collider.