Speaker
Description
The upcoming Electron-Ion Collider requires a high level of theoretical precision to fully map the spin structure of the nucleon. A critical component of this precision is the rigorous treatment of heavy-flavor contributions to polarized deep inelastic scattering. In this study, we explore the heavy quark impact on the polarized structure functions $g_1, g_4, g_5, g_6,$ and $g_7$ at next-to-leading order. Our calculations are performed within the ACOT renormalization scheme, ensuring theoretical consistency across the kinematic transition where heavy quarks shift from being dynamically produced to behaving as active degrees of freedom. We present the analytical results for these NLO contributions alongside their numerical implementation. These findings offer deeper insights into the role of heavy flavors in spin-dependent QCD dynamics and provide a necessary framework for the accurate extraction of polarized parton distributions in the EIC era.