Tackling the kaon structure function at EicC
Gang Xie (Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Nuclear Science, Institute of Quantum Matter, South China Normal University, China, Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China); Chengdong Han (School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China); Rong Wang (School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China); Xurong Chen (Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Nuclear Science, Institute of Quantum Matter, South China Normal University, China, School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)
Measuring the kaon structure beyond proton and pion structures is a prominent topic in hadron physics, as it is one way to understand the nature of the Nambu-Goldstone boson of QCD and observe the interplay between the EHM and HB mechanisms for hadron mass generation. In this study, we present a simulation of the leading Λ baryon tagged deep inelastic scattering experiment at EicC (Electron-ion collider in China), which is engaged to unveil the internal structure of kaon via the Sullivan process. According to our simulation results, the suggested experiment will cover the kinematical domain of $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ and $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ up to 50 GeV $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ , with the acceptable statistical uncertainties. In the relatively low- $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ region ( $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ GeV $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ ), the Monte-Carlo simulation shows a good statistical precision ( $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ %) for the measurement of the kaon structure function $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ . In the high- $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ region (up to 50 GeV $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ ), the statistical uncertainty of $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ is also acceptable ( $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ %) for the data at $ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $ . To perform such an experiment at an electron-ion collider, a high-performance zero-degree calorimeter is suggested. The magnitude of the background process and the assumed detector capabilities are also discussed and illustrated in the paper.
