https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s2006-02523-9
Theoretical Physics
Probing the color glass condensate in an electron-ion collider
1
Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, C.P. 66318, 05315-970, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2
High and Medium Energy Group (GAME), Instituto de Física e Matemática, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, C.P. 354, CEP 96010-900, Pelotas, RS, Brazil
* e-mail: barros@ufpel.edu.br
Received:
15
November
2005
Revised:
17
February
2006
Published online:
30
March
2006
Perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) predicts that the small-x gluons in a hadron wavefunction should form a color glass condensate (CGC), characterized by a saturation scale Qs(x,A), which is energy and atomic number dependent. In this paper, we study the predictions of CGC physics for electron-ion collisions at high energies. We consider that the nucleus at high energies acts as an amplifier of the physics of high parton densities and estimate the nuclear structure function F2 A(x,Q2), as well as the longitudinal and charm contributions, using a generalization for nuclear targets of the Iancu–Itakura–Munier model that describes the ep HERA data quite well. Moreover, we investigate the behavior of the logarithmic slopes of the total and longitudinal structure functions in the kinematical region of the future electron-ion collider eRHIC.
© Springer-Verlag, 2006