Upgrades to the eSTARlight Monte Carlo Event Generator
The Electron-ion collider (EIC) is a collider under development at Brookhaven National Laboratory, expected to be operational in 2033. An electron-ion collision can produce a range of particles including vector mesons. The eSTARlight Monte Carlo event generator simulates these collisions and calculates the cross sections of vector meson production reactions. This thesis describes the upgrades I made to eSTARlight for better simulation of electron-ion collisions. Since the cross-section of reactions is sensitive to the density models used to define the detailed shape of nuclei, I implemented updated nuclear density distribution models for more accurate predictions. Additionally, I added the excited ρ(1450) meson production and decay channel in eSTARlight based on calculations by Lomnitz and Klein [4]. I then used this channel in eSTARlight to estimate the number of excited rho mesons that would hit the planned ePIC detector in anticipated running at the EIC. The ePIC detector acceptance was calculated and also the expected number of excited rho mesons detected. Finally, I implemented updated parametrizations for the energy dependence of the production cross section [32] to get more accurate predictions of the excited rho meson production cross section.
EIC, Estarlight, Monte Carlo, Photoproduction
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