EICAC
Electron-Ion Collider Advisory Committee
November 2-3, 2009
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
Newport News, VA
Circular
In discussions and Town Meetings leading up to the 2007 U.S. Nuclear Physics Long Range Plan, the U.S. QCD communities, including users of both RHIC and CEBAF, established an electron-ion collider (EIC) as the long-range priority for the field. The EIC would provide collisions of polarized electron beams at energies up to 10-20 GeV with heavy ions, polarized protons and polarized light ions of energies 100 GeV/nucleon or more. Collision luminosities of at least 10^33 cm^-2 S^-1 would be necessary to address many of the science goals. Both BNL and JLab have design outlines for how such a facility might be realized, and both depend on a robust program of accelerator R&D in the near future