Multi-scale Imaging of Nuclear Deformation at the Electron Ion Collider

Abstract

We show within the Color Glass Condensate framework that exclusive vector meson production at high energy is sensitive to the geometric deformation of the target nucleus at multiple length scales. Studying $e+$U collisions and varying the deformation of the uranium target, we demonstrate that larger deformations result in enhanced incoherent vector meson production cross sections. Further, different multipole deformation parameters affect different regions of transverse momentum transfer. Employing JIMWLK evolution to study the Bjorken-$x$ dependence of our results, we find that the ratio of incoherent to coherent cross sections decreases with decreasing $x$, largely independently of the quadrupole deformation of the target. Comparing results for the same process using ${}^{20}\mathrm{Ne}$ targets with ${}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ targets, we find that differences in deformation are clearly visible in the incoherent cross section. These findings show that certain observables at the Electron-Ion Collider are very sensitive to nuclear structure. Consequently, deformations need to be taken into account when interpreting experimental results. More importantly, this also means that $|t|$-differential diffractive vector meson production could become a powerful tool, enabling the most direct measurements of nuclear structure at different length scales, ranging from nuclear deformation at low $|t|$ to nucleon- and subnucleon-size scales at higher $|t|$.

References in corpus (10)

• The Color Glass Condensate
• Alternative ansatz to wounded nucleon and binary collision scaling in high-energy nuclear collisions
• Event-by-event gluon multiplicity, energy density and eccentricities at RHIC and LHC
• Revealing proton shape fluctuations with incoherent diffraction at high energy
• Diffractive Dijet Production and Wigner Distributions from the Color Glass Condensate
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• Predictions of elliptic flow and nuclear modification factor from 200 GeV U + U collisions at RHIC
• Exclusive $J/\psi$ photoproduction in ultraperipheral Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC to next-to-leading order perturbative QCD
• Accessing the gluonic structure of light nuclei at the Electron Ion Collider
• Examination of nucleon distribution with Bayesian imaging for isobar collisions

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Imaging Shapes of Atomic Nuclei in High-Energy Nuclear Collisions
• Imaging the initial condition of heavy-ion collisions and nuclear structure across the nuclide chart
• Progress and Challenges in Small Systems
• Exclusive $J/\psi$, $\psi (2s)$, and $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ pair production in Au$+$Au ultra-peripheral collisions at RHIC
• Global Bayesian Analysis of $\mathrm{J}/\psi$ Photoproduction on Proton and Lead Targets
• A study of nuclear structure of light nuclei at the Electron-Ion Collider
• Nuclear deformation effects in photoproduction of $\rho$ mesons in ultraperipheral isobaric collisions
• Probing Nuclear Geometry through Multi-Particle Azimuthal Correlations and Rapidity-Even Dipolar Flow in ${}^{16}$O+${}^{16}$O Collisions
• Diffractive vector meson photo-production in oxygen-oxygen and neon-neon ultraperipheral collisions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider