Topological heavy-flavor tagging and intrinsic bottom at the Electron-Ion Collider

Heavy-flavor hadron production, in particular bottom hadron production, is difficult to study in deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) experiments due to small production rates and branching fractions. To overcome these limitations, a method for identifying heavy-flavor DIS events based on event topology is proposed. Based on a heavy-flavor jet tagging strategy developed for the LHCb experiment, this algorithm uses displaced vertices to identify decays of heavy-flavor hadrons. The algorithm’s performance at the Electron-Ion Collider is demonstrated using simulation, and it is shown to provide discovery potential for nonperturbative intrinsic bottom quarks in the proton. Published by the American Physical Society 2024