EAGER: Study of 3D nucleon structure through deep exclusive processes at the EIC

About This Grant

This IMPRESS-U project is jointly funded by NSF, National Science Center of Poland, and US National Academy of Sciences. The research will be performed in a multilateral international partnership that unites the Institute for Nuclear Studies of the George Washington University (USA), Stony Brook University (USA), University of South Carolina (USA), Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT, Ukraine), and National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ, (Poland). US portion of the collaborative effort will be co-funded by Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE), and Division of Physics of Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate. The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) under construction at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) was identified by US Nuclear Science Advisory Committee as a powerful discovery machine, operating like a precision “microscope” capable of taking 3D pictures of nuclear matter at femtometer scales. By analyzing high-energy head-on collisions of electron and nuclei, it will provide access to a new frontier in nuclear physics, ensuring US leadership in both nuclear science and accelerator physics and technology. Under the proposed project, a trilateral collaboration of nuclear physicists from USA, Poland and Ukraine will develop techniques that will relate characteristics of electron-proton collisions to the internal structure of proton described in terms of elementary building blocks – quarks – and quantum interactions between them. Results of the project will provide scientific guidance for new experiments at EIC. In addition, the project will lay a foundation for a resilient and sustainable US-Poland-Ukraine partnership for EIC science, contributing to training of nuclear workforce in these countries. This project aims at developing theoretical approaches to the analysis of deep-exclusive processes to be studied at Electron Ion Collider (EIC) in Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). This project will advance current understanding of electromagnetic interactions of hadrons beyond the leading order in QED by developing appropriate theoretical and modeling approaches. EIC will be a major next-generation US facility for nuclear science. One of its main goals will be to study the 3D structure of the nucleon through exclusive photon and meson production in electron-proton collisions. An important subset of these processes is deep-exclusive photo- and electroproduction where the produced photon or meson has a high invariant mass and decays into a lepton pair. We propose a two-year theory research program focused on the processes of time-like Compton scattering and J/ψ meson production with subsequent decay into a lepton pair. The scientific goal of this EAGER project is to carry out detailed studies of these deep-exclusive processes, involving a trilateral collaboration between Ukrainian, Polish and US scientists, and addressing aspects of the studies: Calculations of the primary processes, electromagnetic radiative corrections, and simulations for future measurements at the EIC. Theoretical foundations will be established and analysis tools developed for the future studies of Generalized Parton Distributions of a nucleon via deep exclusive processes in the collider setting. Results of the project will provide scientific guidance for new experiments at EIC. The project will lay a foundation for a resilient and sustainable US-Poland-Ukraine partnership for EIC science, which over time could grow to encompass related topics and other institutions involved in the EIC at BNL. Training of early-career scientists - graduate students and postdocs - in US, Ukraine and Poland is one of the key objectives of the project. An international workshop, proposed as a part of this Project, will bring together international attendants, both advanced experts and early-career scientists, and will foster new scientific networks and collaborations focused on the science to be studied at EIC. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.