Charm jets as a probe for strangeness at the future Electron-Ion Collider

TL;DR

This study evaluates the feasibility of measuring charm-jet cross sections in charged-current deep-inelastic scattering at the future Electron-Ion Collider as a direct probe of the nucleon's strange quark content at high x. Using LO Pythia8 simulations and Delphes detector modeling, the authors assess charm-jet tagging via displaced tracks and explore enhancements from single-track PID tagging, mapping event-level sensitivity to extreme Rs scenarios in CT18 fits. They find that 100 fb⁻¹ could yield ~1000 tagged charm events, with ~10% precision on key observables, and demonstrate potential to distinguish enhanced, intermediate, and suppressed strange scenarios, thereby informing both detector design and global PDF analyses. The work underscores the importance of high-luminosity, hermetic detectors with excellent vertexing, forward coverage, and PID capabilities to exploit CC DIS charm-jet measurements as a new handle on nucleon strangeness, including possible extensions to nuclear beams.

Abstract

We explore the feasibility of the measurement of charm-jet cross sections in charged-current deep-inelastic scattering at the future Electron-Ion Collider. This channel provides clean sensitivity to the strangeness content of the nucleon in the high-$x$ region. We estimate charm-jet tagging performance with parametrized detector simulations. We show the expected sensitivity to various scenarios for strange parton distribution functions. We argue that this measurement will be key to future QCD global analyses, so it should inform EIC detector designs and luminosity requirements.

Figures (12)

• Figure 1: Leading-order diagram for the production of final-state charm in charged-current electron-proton DIS.
• Figure 2: The kinematics (momentum, $p$, and polar angle, $\theta$, with respect to the direction of the hadron beam) of generated charm jets in CC DIS with $Q^{2}>100$ GeV$^{2}$. The jets are clustered with the anti-$k_{\mathrm{T}}$ algorithm with $R=1.0$.
• Figure 3: Inclusive and charm-jet production in charged-current DIS at generator level. The jets are reconstructed with the anti-$k_{\mathrm{T}}$ algorithm with $R=1.0$.
• Figure 4: Missing-transverse energy ($E_{T}^{\mathrm{miss}}$) response matrix for charged-current DIS events. The missing energy is reconstructed using Delphes particle-flow objects.
• Figure 5: Bin survival probability obtained using the Jacquet-Blondel method in charged-current DIS events.