The VII-th International Conference on the Initial Stages of High-Energy Nuclear Collisions : Initial Stages 2023

Potential and development of a TeV Muon-Ion Collider as the ultimate QCD frontier

Not scheduled

2h

Københavns Universitetsbibliotek Nord

Poster New facilities: DIS and hadronic experiments Reception and poster session

Speaker

Wei Li (Rice University (US))

Description

The development of a TeV-scale muon accelerator and storage ring provides enormous scientific potential not only for a mu+mu- collider, but also for deep inelastic scattering (DIS) in a completely new regime when a TeV muon beam is collided with a hadron beam. In this talk, we will introduce the concept of a muon-ion collider (MuIC) that can be realized by leveraging the approved electron-ion collider at BNL to achieve a TeV-scale, high-luminosity DIS machine by 2040s. A $Q^2$ reach of up to ${10}^{-6}$ GeV${}^2$ is accessible and a parton momentum fraction $x$ down to $1.0\times {10}^{-5}$ can be probed, which will bring the nuclear and particle physics community to the ultimate QCD frontier. We will discuss the physics potential of such a machine in QCD, electroweak as well as physics beyond the standard model. Finally, we will also report on first studies in understanding experimental challenges with the presence of beam-induced backgrounds from muon decays on measurements at such a collider.