Tracing the Evolution of Nuclear Excitation at the Electron-Ion Collider

TL;DR

This paper explores how the Electron-Ion Collider can be used to study nuclear excitation processes by analyzing event-by-event fluctuations in transverse momentum, offering new insights into nuclear reaction stages and informing future experimental and theoretical work.

Contribution

It demonstrates the capability to distinguish nuclear reaction stages in e+A collisions and identifies transverse momentum fluctuations as a key observable for nuclear excitation studies.

Findings

Transverse momentum fluctuations are sensitive to intranuclear cascade formation time.

Event-by-event analysis can separate different nuclear reaction stages.

The study provides benchmarks for future EIC experiments and nuclear transport models.

Abstract

We investigate the evolution of nuclear excitation in electron-nucleus (e+A) collisions at the upcoming Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) using the BeAGLE event generator. Leveraging the EIC's unique collider kinematics, we demonstrate the remarkable capability to separate distinct nuclear reaction stages, hard scattering, intranuclear cascade, and nuclear de-excitation, in the laboratory frame. Our systematic analysis reveals that event-by-event fluctuations in the mean transverse momentum (k) are highly sensitive to the intranuclear cascade formation time and nuclear geometry, while minimally affected by variations in electron beam energy. These findings establish k as a robust observable for constraining nuclear excitation mechanisms, providing critical benchmarks for future EIC experiments and guiding theoretical advancements in nuclear transport modeling.