Probing Nuclear Gluons with Heavy Flavor Production at EIC

The nuclear modifications of the parton densities in different regions of x (EMC effect, antishadowing, shadowing) reveal aspects of the fundamental QCD substructure of nucleon interactions in the nucleus. We study the feasibility of measuring nuclear gluon densities at large x using open heavy flavor production (charm, beauty) in DIS at EIC. This includes (a) charm production rates and kinematic dependences; (b) charm reconstruction at large xB using exclusive and inclusive modes, enabled by particle identification and vertex detection; (c) impact of inclusive charm data on nuclear gluon density.