Physics potential of TeV scale Muon-Ion Collider for deep inelastic scattering measurements, and probing Z′ bosons in models that violate lepton flavor universality

In this talk we present the motivation and outline the physics potential of a novel muon-ion collider (MuIC) with a muon beam energy of order 1 TeV. Such a collider can provide an extended coverage of deep inelastic scattering variables beyond that achieved at the HERA electron-proton collider and foreseen with the approved Electron Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, allowing for precision QCD, electroweak, and parton density measurements. This would enable us to study gluon saturation inside the proton and other light nuclei for the first time. Additionally with a MuIC we can search for interactions beyond the standard model of particle physics that attempt to explain lepton flavor universality violations reported by other experiments. Some models propose the existence of new gauge bosons like a Z′ or leptoquark. We study the sensitivity of the MuIC for the Z′ model in Phys. Rev. D 97, 075035 and compare it with the sensitivity of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as reported by that group.