Workshop on Physics, Detector and Accelerator Opportunities at the Electron-Ion Collider

Europe/London
Daria Sokhan (University of Glasgow, UK), Laura Gonella (University of Birmingham (UK)), Paul Richard Newman (University of Birmingham (GB))
Description

The Electron-Ion Collider will be the world’s first doubly-polarised electron-hadron collider. The combination of polarisation, variable centre of mass energy and high luminosity will give unprecedented access to the internal structure of nucleons and nuclei, exploiting the nucleus as a laboratory for the study of the strong interaction. The EIC will address some of the biggest unsolved questions of fundamental physics: how hadrons, which account for nearly all of the mass of the visible universe, acquire their mass from the almost-massless quarks, and what is the nature of quark confinement, which gives rise to nucleons, nuclei and ultimately the universe as we know it.

The US Department of Energy formally announced the start of the Electron-Ion Collider project in January 2020, with the Brookhaven National Laboratory near New York being selected as the site of the new facility. Construction is due to begin in 2023 and operation is expected to start in 2030. The EIC Users Group is currently preparing a detailed design study to further develop the science programme and to specify the accelerator and detector requirements needed to deliver it. The study will be completed by the end of the year. An "Expressions of Interest for Potential Cooperation on the EIC Experimental Program”, with emphasis on detector components has already opened and has a deadline of November. Experimental collaborations are expected to start forming at the beginning of next year.

The EIC attracts interest from particle physicists, nuclear physicists, and accelerator scientists, thus the workshop will be interdisciplinary with participants from the three communities. The aim of the workshop is to present an overview of the project and its current status, including ongoing UK involvement, gather UK interest, and discuss opportunities for collaboration, including how UK groups can best join the call for Expressions of Interest. 

Registration
EIC workshop Participant Registration
Participants
    • 09:00 10:10
      Existing and planned UK involvement: Accelerator
      Convener: Daria Sokhan (University of Glasgow, UK)
    • 10:10 10:30
      Coffee break
    • 10:30 12:00
      Existing and planned UK involvement: Physics prospects
      Convener: Laura Gonella (University of Birmingham (UK))
      • 10:30
        UCL experimental talk 10m
        Speaker: Matthew Wing (University College London)
      • 10:45
        UCL theory/high-x partons 15m
        Speaker: Robert Samuel Thorne (University College London (UK))
      • 11:05
        Interests from Oxford 10m
        Speakers: Amanda Sarkar (University of Oxford (GB)), Claire Gwenlan (University of Oxford (GB)), Dr Xianguo Lu (University of Oxford)
      • 11:20
        Exclusive processes 10m
        Speaker: Daria Sokhan (University of Glasgow, UK)
      • 11:35
        Inclusive diffraction 10m
        Speaker: Paul Richard Newman (University of Birmingham (GB))
      • 11:50
        Other expressions of interest by groups 10m
    • 12:00 13:15
      Discussion: Expressions of Interest call and funding prospects
      Convener: Paul Richard Newman (University of Birmingham (GB))