Speaker
Description
The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) is poised to address fundamental questions in nuclear science, as outlined by the National Academy of Science Report and detailed in the Yellow Report. Central to its mission is the understanding of nucleon structure by disentangling the contributions of quarks, gluons, and their orbital angular momentum. The EIC will allow us to determine how much of the mass of visible matter emerges from quark-gluon interactions, how these interactions dynamically originate within Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), and the connection of these phenomena to confinement. Additionally, the EIC will probe how confined hadronic states emerge from quarks and gluons and investigate the behavior of gluon density in nuclei, including potential saturation effects. The early science program is designed to leverage the collider’s versatile beam capabilities, featuring 5 – 10 GeV polarized electrons, 100 – 250 GeV polarized protons, and 100 GeV per nucleon nuclear beams. The initial program will map the out nucleon and nuclei structure from high to low x, including the spatial and momentum structure of nucleons and nuclei in three dimensions. This talk will outline the initial commissioning plan, and the EIC Phase 1 early science program which will span the first five years of physics operation. The ability to measure key observables, such as nuclear parton distribution functions.
