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.
