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Lepton scattering is an established ideal tool for studying inner structure of small particles such as nucleons as well as nuclei. As a future high energy nuclear physics project, an Electron-ion collider in China (EicC) has been proposed. It will be constructed based on an upgraded heavy-ion accelerator, High Intensity heavy-ion Accelerator Facility (HIAF) which is currently under construction, together with a new electron ring. The proposed collider will provide highly polarized electrons (with a polarization of $\sim$80%) and protons (with a polarization of $\sim$70%) with variable center of mass energies from 15 to 20 GeV and the luminosity of (2-3) $\times$ 10$^{33}$ cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. Polarized deuterons and Helium-3, as well as unpolarized ion beams from Carbon to Uranium, will be also available at the EicC. The main foci of the EicC will be precision measurements of the structure of the nucleon in the sea quark region, including 3D tomography of nucleon; the partonic structure of nuclei and the parton interaction with the nuclear environment; the exotic states, especially those with heavy flavor quark contents. In addition, issues fundamental to understanding the origin of mass could be addressed by measurements of heavy quarkonia near-threshold production at the EicC. In order to achieve the above-mentioned physics goals, a hermetical detector system will be constructed with cutting-edge technologies. This document is the result of collective contributions and valuable inputs from experts across the globe. The EicC physics program complements the ongoing scientific programs at the Jefferson Laboratory and the future EIC project in the United States. The success of this project will also advance both nuclear and particle physics as well as accelerator and detector technology in China., EicC white paper, written by the whole EicC working group

Physical review / D 104(5), 054503 (2021). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.104.054503, We present results on the quark unpolarized, helicity and transversity parton distributions functions of the nucleon. We use the quasi-parton distribution approach within the lattice QCD framework and perform the computation using an ensemble of twisted mass fermions with the strange and charm quark masses tuned to approximately their physical values and light quark masses giving pion mass of 260 MeV. We use hierarchical probing to evaluate the disconnected quark loops. We discuss identification of ground state dominance, the Fourier transform procedure and convergence with the momentum boost. We find non-zero results for the disconnected isoscalar and strange quark distributions. The determination of the quark parton distribution and in particular the strange quark contributions that are poorly known provide valuable input to the structure of the nucleon., Published by Inst., Melville, NY

Measuring DVCS on a neutron target is a necessary step to deepen our understanding of the structure of the nucleon in terms of Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs). The combination of neutron and proton targets allows to perform a flavor decomposition of the GPDs. Moreover, neutron-DVCS plays a complementary role to DVCS on a transversely polarized proton target in the determination of the GPD $E$, the least known and constrained GPD that enters Ji's angular momentum sum rule. A measurement of the beam-charge asymmetry (BCA) in the $e^{\pm} d\to e^{\pm}n\gamma(p)$ reaction can significantly impact the experimental determination of the real parts of the $E$ and, to a lesser extent, $\widetilde{H}$ GPDs., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2007.15081, arXiv:1906.09419

Measuring the spin structure of protons and neutrons tests our understanding of how they arise from quarks and gluons, the fundamental building blocks of nuclear matter. At long distances the coupling constant of the strong interaction becomes large, requiring non-perturbative methods to calculate quantum chromodynamics processes, such as lattice gauge theory or effective field theories. Here we report proton spin structure measurements from scattering a polarized electron beam off polarized protons. The spin-dependent cross-sections were measured at large distances, corresponding to the region of low momentum transfer squared between 0.012 and 1.0 GeV$^2$. This kinematic range provides unique tests of chiral effective field theory predictions. Our results show that a complete description of the nucleon spin remains elusive, and call for further theoretical works, e.g. in lattice quantum chromodynamics. Finally, our data extrapolated to the photon point agree with the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn sum rule, a fundamental prediction of quantum field theory that relates the anomalous magnetic moment of the proton to its integrated spin-dependent cross-sections., Published version. 10 pages, 5 figures. 20 pages of supplementary material (data tables and a figure)

The outer crust properties of cold non-accreting neutron stars are studied within the framework of the quark-meson coupling (QMC) model, which includes the effects of modifications of the quark structure inside individual nucleons when they are within a high-density nuclear medium. With a unique set of five well-constrained adjustable parameters, which have a clear physical basis, the QMC model gives predictions for the ground state observables of even-even nuclei which agree with experiment as well as traditional models. Furthermore, it gives improved theoretical values for nuclei thought to play a role in the outer crusts of neutron stars but for which experimental data is not available. Using the latest experimental data tables wherever possible but otherwise the predictions from the QMC model, we construct an equation of state for the outer crust which is then used within stellar model calculations to obtain an equilibrium sequence of crustal layers, each characterized by a particular neutron rich nuclei. Various properties of the layers are calculated for a range of neutron-star masses, and comparisons are made with alternative equations of state from the literature. This leads to the conclusion that the QMC model successfully predicts the outer crust properties and is fully comparable with the more traditional mass models, which all depend on a larger number of parameters., Comment: Minor changes in the text (typos and phrasing), additional cross-listing, 35 pages, 7 figures

Journal of physics / G 49(1), 010502 (2022). doi:10.1088/1361-6471/ac2827, Published by IOP Publ., Bristol

The microscopic origin of the spin-orbit (SO) potential in terms of sub-baryonic degrees of freedom is explored and discussed for application to nuclei and hyper-nuclei. We thus develop a chiral relativistic approach where the coupling to the scalar- and vector-meson fields are controlled by the quark substructure. This approach suggests that the isoscalar and isovector density dependence of the SO potential can be used to test the microscopic ingredients which are implemented in the relativistic framework: the quark substructure of the nucleon in its ground-state and its coupling to the rich meson sector where the $\rho$ meson plays a crucial role. This is also in line with the Vector Dominance Model (VDM) phenomenology and the known magnetic properties of the nucleons. We explore predictions based on Hartree and Hartree-Fock mean field, as well as various scenarios for the $\rho$-nucleon coupling, ranked as weak, medium and strong, which impacts the isoscalar and isovector density dependence of the SO potential. We show that a medium to strong $\rho$ coupling is essential to reproduce Skyrme phenomenology in $N=Z$ nuclei as well as its isovector dependence. Assuming an SU(6) valence quark model our approach is extended to hyperons and furnishes a microscopic understanding of the quenching of the $N\Lambda$ spin-orbit potential in hyper-nuclei. It is also applied to other hyperons, such as $\Sigma$, $\Xi$ and $\Omega$., Comment: 9 pages, 3 tables

International audience; We discuss the leading-twist quark Wigner distributions in the nucleon, both in the T-even and T-odd sectors, considering all the possible configurations of the quark and nucleon polarizations. We identify the basic multipole structures associated with each distribution in the transverse phase space, providing a transparent interpretation of the spin-spin and spin-orbit correlations of quarks and nucleons encoded in these functions.