Multiscale Imaging of Nuclear Deformation at the Electron-Ion Collider

We show within the color glass condensate framework that exclusive vector meson production at high energy is very sensitive to the geometric deformation of the target nucleus at multiple length scales. We show that different multipole deformation parameters affect different regions of transverse momentum transfer. These results have two important consequences: (1) Deformations of nuclear targets need to be taken into account when making predictions for and interpreting certain observables at the EIC. (2) Differential diffractive vector meson production has the potential to become a powerful tool, enabling the most direct measurements of nuclear structure at different length scales, ranging from large scale nuclear deformation at low transverse momentum transfer to fluctuations on nucleon- and subnucleon-size scales at higher transverse momentum transfer.

Figure 1

Coherent and incoherent $\mathrm{J}/\psi$ photoproduction cross sections at $x_p=1.7\times {10}^{-3}$ in $\mathrm{e}+U$ collisions for different ${\beta }_2$ (a), ${\beta }_3$ (b), and ${\beta }_4$ (c) values. The bands show the statistical uncertainty of the calculation.

Figure 2

Incoherent-to-coherent $\mathrm{J}/\psi$ photoproduction cross section ratio as a function of $x_{\mathbb{P}}$ in $\mathrm{e}+U$ collisions at different initial ${\beta }_2$ values.

Figure 3

Coherent and incoherent $\mathrm{J}/\psi$ photoproduction cross sections in $\mathrm{e}+{}^{20}\mathrm{Ne}$ and $\mathrm{e}+{}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ collisions (top panel), and the incoherent cross section ratios between ${}^{20}\mathrm{Ne}$ and ${}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ (bottom panel).