Tracing Gluon Saturation through Hadronization at EIC

Abstract

Gluon saturation provides a window into the nonlinear nature of the strong interaction in nuclear matter. One direct consequence of saturation is the $\boldsymbol{k}_T$ broadening in the final state.We investigate how hadronization reshapes conventional signatures of gluon saturation at EIC within a complete event-generator framework. To this end, we implement in eHIJING an initial-state-radiation algorithm based on nonlinear small-$x$ evolution and complete the events with beam remnants, final-state radiation, and hadronization. In our simulations, the signal of parton-level nuclear $\boldsymbol{k}_T$ broadening is strongly diluted in both the nucleon energy correlator and leading-dihadron azimuthal decorrelation after hadronization. Global hadronic recoil, by contrast, remains sensitive to the underlying $\boldsymbol{k}_T$ broadening. We further demonstrate that Bayesian unfolding of the global hadronic recoil provides access to the underlying hard-scattering $\boldsymbol{k}_T$ distribution. These results establish the global hadronic recoil as a promising saturation observable at the EIC.