Speaker
Description
Of the many measurements that will be possible at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), inclusive Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) measurements offer excellent opportunities to advance our understanding of the collinear structure of the proton, and QCD. We explore the potential for extracting proton structure functions, proton parton density functions (PDFs), and the strong coupling $\alpha_s(M_Z^2)$, using simulated EIC data, both standalone, and in combination with HERA data. Different beam energy and luminosity scenarios are considered, and the Rosenbluth separation method is used to determine the precision with which the proton structure functions $F_2$ and $F_L$ may be extracted at the EIC, in a model-independent manner. Additionally, the impact of EIC electron-proton DIS data on the precision of the proton PDFs is evaluated through the inclusion of simulated data in a global QCD fit at NNLO, performed in the HERAPDF2.0 framework. The simultaneous fitting of the PDFs and $\alpha_s(M_Z^2)$ indicates that the strong coupling may be determined to potentially world leading precision with inclusive DIS data alone, even during the early years of EIC operation.