Investigating novel ways of improving nuclear imagining through exclusive vector meson production at the Electron-Ion Collider

One of the major goals of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) is to better understand nuclear structure at high

energy. A principal measurement is coherent exclusive vector meson (VM) production in diffractive e + A

collisions. The gluon spatial distribution inside the nucleus can be obtained through a Fourier transform of

the nuclear momentum transfer (|t|) distribution for these vector mesons. However, the |t| distribution is one

of the most challenging measurements at the EIC. There are two main obstacles in this measurement that this

research aims to overcome: limited precision in measuring |t| and large background from incoherent events

that govern most of the |t| regime, making it difficult to resolve the diffractive pattern from coherent events.

We employ a method for reconstructing |t| by utilizing the electron beam polarization in e + A collisions

and measuring the projected |t| distribution to overcome those complications. Currently, we are studying

the feasibility of this method. If successful, this technique will allow us to statistically separate incoherent

and coherent events and precisely measure the diffractive pattern, providing a potential solution for a critical

measurement that is difficult for the EIC baseline detector.