QED nuclear medium effects at EIC energies

TL;DR

This paper presents the first numerical estimates of QED nuclear medium effects in inelastic electron-nucleus scattering at EIC energies, highlighting their potential impact on experimental measurements and nuclear structure extraction.

Contribution

It extends previous elastic scattering studies to inelastic processes, providing detailed calculations of QED medium effects and their uncertainties in a nuclear medium at EIC conditions.

Findings

QED nuclear medium effects can significantly alter scattering cross sections.

Multiple re-scattering effects are comparable to single re-scattering impacts.

Uncertainties are estimated by varying the atomic physics screening scale.

Abstract

We present the first calculation of quantum electrodynamics (QED) nuclear medium effects under the experimental conditions of future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) experiments. Our work offers numerical estimates, particularly in the context of inclusive deep inelastic scattering on a $^{208}_{82}\mathrm{Pb}$ nucleus. While prior studies have predominantly focused on elastic scattering, our investigation extends to the more complex scenarios of inelastic processes within a nuclear medium. Our findings suggest that the cross-section corrections due to QED nuclear medium effects could be substantial, reaching or exceeding the level of experimental precision. This work further compares the effects of single re-scattering events with those of multiple re-scatterings, as particles travel the nuclear volume. We estimate the dominant source of the uncertainties associated with our formalism by varying the scale of the atomic physics where the screening of the electric field of the nucleus happens. This calculation not only contributes to the understanding of QED nuclear medium effects, but also offers a path to a more precise extraction of the process-independent non-perturbative structure of nuclei.