Heavy quark production at an Electron-Ion Collider

An Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) with center-of-mass energies sqrt(s_{eN}) ~ 20-100 GeV and luminosity L ~ 10^{34} cm^{-2} s^{-1} would offer new opportunities to study heavy quark production in high-energy electron or photon scattering on protons and nuclei. We report about an R&D project exploring the feasibility of direct measurements of nuclear gluon densities at large x (gluonic EMC effect, antishadowing) using open charm production at EIC. We describe the charm production rates and angle-momentum distributions at large x and discuss methods of charm reconstruction using next-generation detector capabilities (pi/K identification, vertex reconstruction). The results can be used also for other physics applications of heavy quark production at EIC (fragmentation functions, jets, heavy quark propagation in nuclei).

No reviews yet.

No comments yet.