Abstract
We quantify the impact of unpolarized lepton-proton and lepton-nucleus inclusive deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) cross section measurements from the future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) on the proton and nuclear parton distribution functions (PDFs). To this purpose, we include neutral- and charged-current DIS pseudodata in a self-consistent set of proton and nuclear global PDF determinations based on the NNPDF methodology. We demonstrate that the EIC measurements will reduce the uncertainty of the light quark PDFs of the proton at large values of the momentum fraction and, more significantly, of the quark and gluon PDFs of heavy nuclei, especially at small and large . We illustrate the implications of the improved precision of nuclear PDFs for the interaction of ultrahigh energy cosmic neutrinos with matter.
- Received 4 February 2021
- Accepted 6 April 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.103.096005
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.
Published by the American Physical Society