Extracting the partonic structure of colorless exchanges at the Electron Ion Collider

TL;DR

This paper assesses how well the Electron Ion Collider can determine the partonic structure of colorless exchanges like Pomerons and Reggeons in diffractive scattering, using simulated data and various experimental scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a method to estimate the precision of partonic structure extraction at the EIC through fits to pseudodata, considering different experimental conditions.

Findings

EIC can constrain Reggeon partonic structure with precision similar to Pomeron.

Kinematic cuts and beam configurations significantly affect the extraction accuracy.

Simulated data analysis guides future experimental strategies at the EIC.

Abstract

We investigate the determination of the partonic structure of colorless exchanges in deep inelastic diffractive $ep$ scattering at the Electron Ion Collider, using the standard decomposition into Pomeron and Reggeon contributions. We perform fits to simulated diffractive cross section pseudodata in four variables, including the momentum transfer $t$, to estimate the achievable precision on the Pomeron and Reggeon quark and gluon distributions. We analyze the influence of different cuts in the kinematic variables, beam energy configurations and luminosities, including a `first year' scenario. We conclude that the EIC will be able to constrain the partonic structure of the sub-leading Reggeon exchange with a precision comparable to that of the leading Pomeron exchange.