Thursday, October 8, 2026
4:00 pm-5:00 pm
Illuminating the Strong Force: Understanding the Structure of Matter in the Universe with the Electron-Ion Collider
All of the visible matter in our universe exists due to the interactions between quarks and gluons, which comprise protons and neutrons, and allow them to bind together to form atomic nuclei. These interactions arise due to the strong nuclear force, described by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). There are many open questions in QCD which require precision measurements of deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) on protons and nuclei to answer. In January of 2020, the US Department of Energy officially green-lit the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), which will be the best tool to answer these questions in QCD, to be constructed at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Building on the existing infrastructure of the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC), the EIC will be the first machine capable of colliding polarized electrons with proton and light-ion beams, and of colliding electrons with heavy-ion beams, all over a broad range of center-of-mass energies. In addition, the EIC will operate at luminosities which exceed the lifetime luminosity of previous DIS collider facilities in a single year, enabling access to statistically challenging measurements sensitive to the spatial structure of the quarks and gluons inside the proton and nuclei. In this talk, I introduce the physics of the EIC and the relevant experimental technology required to achieve the science goals of this new facility. Additionally, I will discuss what can be achieved with current data from RHIC as we transition to the EIC era over the next decade.
