Azimuthal Asymmetry and Ratio $R=F_L/F_T$ as Probes of the Charm Content of the Proton

Abstract

We study two experimental ways to measure the heavy-quark content of the proton: using the Callan-Gross ratio $R(x,Q^2)=F_L/F_T$ and/or azimuthal $\cos (2\phi )$ asymmetry in deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering. Our approach is based on the perturbative stability of the QCD predictions for these two quantities. We resume the mass logarithms of the type ${\alpha }_s\ln \left(Q^2/m^2\right)$ and conclude that heavy-quark densities in the nucleon can, in principle, be determined from data on the Callan-Gross ratio and/or azimuthal asymmetry. In particular, the charm content of the proton can be measured in future studies at the proposed Large Hadron-Electron (LHeC) and Electron-Ion (EIC) Colliders.

Comments: 6 pages, 4 figures, revtex. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1010.5424, arXiv:1212.3785, arXiv:0812.0722