Coulomb corrections to inclusive cross sections at the future Electron - Ion Collider

Abstract

The experimental results of the future electron -- ion ($e A$) collider are expected to constrain the dynamics of the strong interactions at small values of the Bjorken -- $x$ variable and large nuclei. Recently it has been suggested that Coulomb corrections can be important in inclusive and diffractive $eA$ interactions. In this paper we present a detailed investigation of the impact of the Coulomb corrections to some of the observables that will be measured in the future $eA$ collider. In particular, we estimate the magnitude of these corrections for the charm and longitudinal cross sections in inclusive and diffractive interactions. Our results demonstrate that the Coulomb corrections for these observables are negligible, which implies that they can be used to probe the QCD dynamics.