Deep inelastic scattering at the TeV energy scale and the LHeC project

Abstract

The prospect of an ep collider involving an LHC proton beam and a new electron accelerator is discussed. Configurations reaching centre of mass energies a factor of 5 beyond HERA are possible with luminosities of the order of 10 33 cm −2 s −1 . The physics programme with such a facility is surveyed and possible machine and detector lay-outs are sketched.

Structure functions

“…Meanwhile interest is growing worldwide for a novel electron-ion collider. Design concepts exist at CERN, with ideas to intersect an electron accelerator with the Large Hadron Collider (LHeC) [261], and in the U.S. to either add an electron accelerator to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at BNL, or an ion accelerator to the upgraded 12-GeV Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility at JLab. The US project is generically called the EIC [262].…”

Physics opportunities at an electron–ion collider

“…The LHeC program can be classified into three major topics: QCD and EW precision physics, beyond standard model studies and exploration of a high parton density regime [10][11][12], see also [13]. The LHeC will be able to extend considerably the constraints on the gluon and sea quark parton distributions in the proton down to very low values of x ∼ 10 −6 , see figure 1, through the precision measurement of the structure function.…”