Next-generation nuclear physics with light ions at EIC

Speaker: Christian Weiss
Affiliation: Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab)
Date: 11/12

Abstract: 

The future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) will enable a next-generation program in high-energy electron scattering  on light nuclei (A = 2, 3, 4, …), extending the reach of current fixed-target experiments at JLab 12 GeV.
Such experiments address fundamental  questions of nuclear physics such as the quark spin structure of the neutron,  the emergence of nuclear forces from quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the 3D distributions of quarks and gluons in nuclei, and quantum phenomena in coherent and diffractive nuclear processes. New capabilities provided by  the EIC are polarized ion beams and far-forward detectors capturing the low-energy nuclear breakup state  (spectator nucleons, nuclear fragments, coherent scattering). The seminar will present an overview of the emerging  “light-ion physics” program at EIC, including the objectives, theoretical concepts, experimental techniques, and simulation results. Special emphasis will be placed on the interplay of the high-energy scattering process with low-energy nuclear structure in the nuclear scattering experiments, which poses new challenges and opportunities for collaboration between the QCD and nuclear structure physics communities.