Heavy quark production at an Electron-Ion Collider

Abstract

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).