Heavy meson tomography of cold nuclear matter at the electron-ion collider

• Published in: Physics letters. B 2021-05, Vol.816 (C), p.136261, Article 136261
• Main Authors: Li, Hai Tao, Liu, Ze Long, Vitev, Ivan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0370-2693; 1873-2445
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2021.136261

An important part of the physics program of the future electron-ion collider is to understand the nature of hadronization and the transport of energy and matter in large nuclei. Open heavy flavor production in deep inelastic scattering provides a new tool to address these critical questions. We present the first calculation of D-mesons and B-meson cross sections in electron-nucleus collisions at the EIC by including both next-to-leading order QCD corrections and cold nuclear matter effects. Our formalism employs generalized DGLAP evolution to include the contribution of in-medium parton showers, and is based on methods developed in soft-collinear effective theory with Glauber gluons that describe inclusive hadron production in reactions with nucleons and nuclei. The comprehensive study summarized here allows us to identify the optimal observables, center-of-mass energies, and kinematic regions most sensitive to the physics of energy loss and hadronization at the EIC.