The glue that binds us all -- Latin America and the Electron-Ion Collider (2409.18407v2)

Abstract: The Electron-Ion Collider, a next generation electron-hadron and electron-nuclei scattering facility, will be built at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The wealth of new data will shape research in hadron physics, from nonperturbative QCD techniques to perturbative QCD improvements and global QCD analyses, for the decades to come. With the present proposal, Latin America based physicists, whose expertise lies on the theory and phenomenology side, make the case for the past and future efforts of a growing community, working hand-in-hand towards developing theoretical tools and predictions to analyze, interpret and optimize the results that will be obtained at the EIC, unveiling the role of the glue that binds us all. This effort is along the lines of various initiatives taken in the U.S., and supported by colleagues worldwide, such as the ones by the EIC User Group which were highlighted during the Snowmass Process and the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5).