A muon–ion collider at BNL: The future QCD frontier and path to a new energy frontier of μ⁺μ^– colliders

Journal Article · 12 January 2022 · Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2022.166334 · OSTI ID:1905518

Acosta, Darin  ^[1]; Li, Wei  ^[2]

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1. Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States); Rice University
2. Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)

In this work, we propose the development and construction of a novel muon–ion collider (MuIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in the USA as an upgrade to succeed the electron–ion collider (EIC) that is scheduled to commence in the early 2030s, by a joint effort of the nuclear and particle physics communities. The BNL facility could accommodate a muon storage beam with an energy up to about 1 TeV with existing magnet technology. When collided with a 275 GeV hadron beam, the MuIC center-of-mass energy of about 1 TeV will extend the kinematic coverage of deep inelastic scattering physics at the EIC (with polarized beams) by more than an order of magnitude in Q² and x, opening a new QCD frontier to address many fundamental scientific questions in nuclear and particle physics. This coverage is comparable to that of the proposed Large Hadron–Electron Collider (LHeC) at CERN, but with complementary lepton and hadron kinematics, ion species, and beam polarization. Additionally, the development of a MuIC at BNL will focus the worldwide R&D efforts on muon collider technology and serve as a demonstrator toward a future muon–antimuon collider at O(10) TeV energy, which is an attractive option to reach the next high energy frontier in particle physics at an affordable cost and a smaller footprint than a future circular hadron collider. We discuss here the possible design parameters of the MuIC, kinematic coverage, science cases, and detector design considerations including resolution estimates on DIS kinematic variables. A possible road map toward the future MuIC and muon–antimuon colliders is also presented.

• Research Organization: Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0005131; SC0010266; SC0023351
• OSTI ID: 1905518
• Journal Information: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Journal Name: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment Vol. 1027; ISSN 0168-9002
• Publisher: ElsevierCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English