Prospects for early heavy-quark measurements at the EIC
Abstract
We assess the prospects for inclusive heavy-quark-pair electroproduction in electron-proton (ep) and electron-nucleus (eA) collisions, alongside double-charm-pair (D0 D̅0 and D0D0) electroproduction in ep collisions, during the early operational phase of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). Based on the anticipated beam energies and luminosities of the EIC, we estimate the total cross sections and differential distributions for photon virtuality Q2, heavy-quark transverse momentum, and rapidity. This analysis evaluates different Bjorken-x (xBj) intervals across a range of Q2 values. Expected event yields are estimated from the projected integrated luminosities of the early science programme, demonstrating the substantial improvement in statistical precision over previous HERA measurements at moderate and large xBj. For electron--nucleus collisions, we compute the nuclear modification ratio ReA within collinear factorisation using nuclear parton distribution functions, and identify the kinematic regimes in which shadowing, anti-shadowing, and EMC-like suppression are accessible with early EIC data. These results are intended to serve as a parton-level baseline to support feasibility studies and to provide a reference for future higher-order theoretical and experimental investigations at the EIC.
Related
- Momentum dependence of heavy quark diffusion in a thermal gluonic plasma on the lattice
- Observables in exclusive heavy quarkonium electroproduction at NLO and prospects for the EIC
- Heavy quark thermalization using phonon-heavy quark EFT
- Heavy-quark thermalization in the quark-gluon plasma via a fractional Langevin equation
- Charm quark production in heavy-ion collisions as a signature of pre-equilibrium
BibTeX
@article{rajan2026prospects,
title = {{Prospects for early heavy-quark measurements at the EIC}},
author = {Allencris John Rubesh Rajan and Laboni Manna},
journal = {Eur.Phys.J.A},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1140/epja/s10050-026-01974-6},
eprint = {2608.09608},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05736135v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Prospects for early heavy-quark measurements at the EIC
AU - Allencris John Rubesh Rajan
AU - Laboni Manna
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/02
JO - Eur.Phys.J.A
DO - 10.1140/epja/s10050-026-01974-6
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05736135v1
AB - We assess the prospects for inclusive heavy-quark-pair electroproduction in electron-proton (ep) and electron-nucleus (eA) collisions, alongside double-charm-pair (D^0 D̅^0 and D^0D^0) electroproduction in ep collisions, during the early operational phase of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). Based on the anticipated beam energies and luminosities of the EIC, we estimate the total cross sections and differential distributions for photon virtuality Q^2, heavy-quark transverse momentum, and rapidity. This analysis evaluates different Bjorken-x (x_Bj) intervals across a range of Q^2 values. Expected event yields are estimated from the projected integrated luminosities of the early science programme, demonstrating the substantial improvement in statistical precision over previous HERA measurements at moderate and large x_Bj. For electron--nucleus collisions, we compute the nuclear modification ratio R^eA within collinear factorisation using nuclear parton distribution functions, and identify the kinematic regimes in which shadowing, anti-shadowing, and EMC-like suppression are accessible with early EIC data. These results are intended to serve as a parton-level baseline to support feasibility studies and to provide a reference for future higher-order theoretical and experimental investigations at the EIC.
ER -