Centre d'études et d'expertise sur les risques, l'environnement, la mobilité et l'aménagement

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ForewordThe study of the fundamental structure of nuclear matter is a central thrust of physics research in the United States. As indicated in Frontiers of Nuclear Science, the 2007 Nuclear Science Advisory Committee long range plan, consideration of a future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) is a priority and will likely be a significant focus of discussion at the next long range plan. We are therefore pleased to have supported the ten week program in fall 2010 at the Institute of Nuclear Theory which examined at length the science case for the EIC. This program was a major effort; it attracted the maximum allowable attendance over ten weeks.This report summarizes the current understanding of the physics and articulates important open questions that can be addressed by an EIC. It converges towards a set of "golden" experiments that illustrate both the science reach and the technical demands on such a facility, and thereby establishes a firm ground from which to launch the next phase in preparation for the upcoming long range plan discussions. We thank all the participants in this productive program. In particular, we would like to acknowledge the leadership and dedication of the five co-organizers of the program who are also the co-editors of this report.David Kaplan, Director, National Institute for Nuclear Theory Hugh Montgomery, Director, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility Steven Vigdor, Associate Lab Director, Brookhaven National Laboratory iii Preface This volume is based on a ten-week program on "Gluons and the quark sea at high energies", which took place at the Institute for Nuclear Theory (INT) in Seattle from September 13 to November 19, 2010. The principal aim of the program was to develop and sharpen the science case for an Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a facility that will be able to collide electrons and positrons with polarized protons and with light to heavy nuclei at high energies, offering unprecedented possibilities for in-depth studies of quantum chromodynamics. Guiding questions were• What are the crucial science issues?• How do they fit within the overall goals for nuclear physics?• Why can't they be addressed adequately at existing facilities?• Will they still be interesting in the 2020's, when a suitable facility might be realized?The program started with a five-day workshop on "Perturbative and Non-Perturbative Aspects of QCD at Collider Energies", which was followed by eight weeks of regular program and a concluding four-day workshop on "The Science Case for an EIC".More than 120 theorists and experimentalists took part in the program over ten weeks. It was only possible to smoothly accommodate such a large number of participants because of the extraordinary efforts of the INT staff, to whom we extend our warm thanks and appreciation. We thank the INT Director, David Kaplan, for his strong support of the program and for covering a significant portion of the costs for printing this volume. We gratefully acknowledge additional financial support provided by BNL and JLab.The program w...

The physics programme and the design are described of a new collider for particle and nuclear physics, the Large Hadron Electron Collider (LHeC), in which a newly built electron beam of 60 GeV, to possibly 140 GeV, energy collides with the intense hadron beams of the LHC. Compared to the first ep collider, HERA, the kinematic range covered is extended by a factor of twenty in the negative four-momentum squared, Q 2 , and in the inverse Bjorken x, while with the design luminosity of 10 33 cm −2 s −1 the LHeC is projected to exceed the integrated HERA luminosity by two orders of magnitude. The physics programme is devoted to an exploration of the energy frontier, complementing the LHC and its discovery potential for physics beyond the Standard Model with high precision deep inelastic scattering measurements. These are designed to investigate a variety of fundamental questions in strong and electroweak interactions. The LHeC thus continues the path of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) into unknown areas of physics and kinematics. The physics programme also includes electron-deuteron and electron-ion scattering in a (Q 2 1/x) range extended by four orders of magnitude as compared to previous lepton-nucleus DIS experiments for novel investigations of neutron's and nuclear structure, the initial conditions of Quark-Gluon Plasma formation and further quantum chromodynamic phenomena. The LHeC may be realised either as a ring-ring or as a linac-ring collider. Optics and beam dynamics studies are presented for both versions, along with technical design considerations on the interaction region, magnets including new dipole prototypes, cryogenics, RF, and further components. A design study is also presented of a detector suitable to perform high precision DIS measurements in a wide range of acceptance using state-ofthe art detector technology, which is modular and of limited size enabling its fast installation. The detector includes tagging devices for electron, photon, proton and neutron detection near to the beam pipe. Civil engineering and installation studies are presented for the accelerator and the detector. The LHeC can be built within a decade and thus be operated while the LHC runs in its high-luminosity phase. It so represents a major opportunity for progress in particle physics exploiting the investment made in the LHC.