Studies of Hadron Spectroscopy at the future Electron-Hadron and Electron-Ion Colliders

Dear Colleagues,

The exploration of the structure of the nucleons and nuclei is essential for all aspects of the physics programs of the future electron-hadron and electron-ion colliders, which will collide high- and medium-energy electron and proton/ion beams, providing ultimate tools for high-precision studies in Quantum Chromodynamics. Such colliders are the US Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) currently under construction at BNL, the proposed CERN’s Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC) and Electron-Ion Collider in China (EicC), as well as the Future Circular lepton-hadron Collider (FCC-eh), plus the potential CEBAF energy upgrade at Jlab. All these machines will be excellent laboratories for carrying out studies in many branches of modern nuclear physics, including hadron spectroscopy. The prospective experimental measurements along with theoretical/phenomenological research in hadron spectroscopy will have a major impact, particularly, on our more comprehensive and thorough understanding of non-conventional (exotic) and conventional states that are studied for already several decades in electron-positron annihilation experiments worldwide.

Currently, there are various specific topics relevant to the spectroscopy programs for the colliders outlined above, which could be of great importance for this Special Issue, including but not limited to

• Studies of photo- and electroproduction in exclusive, semi-inclusive and inclusive processes that can produce XYZ, multiquark, and baryon-antibaryon molecular states, as well as charm/bottom meson and charmonium/bottomonium states.
• Development of a systematic approach to scattering theory for production and decay of heavy-quark resonances; further development of the mechanisms/models for exotic states’ production.
• Studies of exclusive hadron production and hadronization through heavy-flavor production.
• Hadron spectroscopy with lattice QCD: studies for conventional and exotic hadrons; calculations of scattering amplitudes in certain channels, where exotic candidates may potentially be observable.

All the topics shown in Section X. HADRON SPECTROSCOPY AT EIC of the EIC Theory Alliance White Paper (arXiv:2305.14572 [hep-ph]) may also be covered in this Special Issue.

Thereby, our goal is to take a “snapshot” of the present developments, by assembling novel research articles and comprehensive reviews related to the above-mentioned and various other spectroscopy-related potential topics for the future electron-hadron and electron-ion colliders. We cordially invite contributions of theoretical and phenomenological nature (based on physics simulations as well) from our colleagues working in this broad field of research of modern nuclear physics.

Dr. Vladimir Vladimir Khachatryan
Guest Editor

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• quantum chromodynamics
• electron scattering
• electron-hadron colliders
• hadron spectroscopy
• conventional & non-conventional hadronic states
• photo & electroproduction processes
• exclusive & inclusive processes
• fragmentation & hadronization