Abstract: The Large Hadron-Electron Collider (LHeC) is designed to move the field of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) to the energy and intensity frontier of particle physics. Exploiting energy-recovery technology, it collides a novel, intense electron beam with a proton or ion beam from the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). The accelerator and interaction region are designed for concurrent electron-proton and proton-proton operations. This report represents an update to the LHeC's conceptual design report (CDR), published in 2012. It comprises new results on the parton structure of the proton and heavier nuclei, QCD dynamics, and electroweak and top-quark physics. It is shown how the LHeC will open a new chapter of nuclear particle physics by extending the accessible kinematic range of lepton-nucleus scattering by several orders of magnitude. Due to its enhanced luminosity and large energy and the cleanliness of the final hadronic states, the LHeC has a strong Higgs physics programme and its own discovery potential for new physics. Building on the 2012 CDR, this report contains a detailed updated design for the energy-recovery electron linac (ERL), including a new lattice, magnet and superconducting radio-frequency technology, and further components. Challenges of energy recovery are described, and the lower-energy, high-current, three-turn ERL facility, PERLE at Orsay, is presented, which uses the LHeC characteristics serving as a development facility for the design and operation of the LHeC. An updated detector design is presented corresponding to the acceptance, resolution, and calibration goals that arise from the Higgs and parton-density-function physics programmes. This paper also presents novel results for the Future Circular Collider in electron-hadron (FCC-eh) mode, which utilises the same ERL technology to further extend the reach of DIS to even higher centre-of-mass energies.

Abstract: The neutron capture cross sections of (186)Os and (187)Os are of key importance for defining the 8-process abundance of (187)Os at the formation of the solar system. This quantity can be used to determine the radiogenic abundance component of (187)Os from the decay of (187)Re (t(1/2) = 41.2 Gyr) and to infer the time-duration of the nucleosynthesis in our galaxy (Re/Os cosmochronometer). The neutron capture cross sections of (186)Os, (187)Os, and (188)Os have been measured at the CERN nTOF facility from 1 eV to 1 MeV, covering the entire energy range of astrophysical interest. From these data Maxwellian averaged capture cross sections have been calculated with uncertainties between 3.3 and 4.7%. Additional information was obtained by measuring the inelastic scattering cross section of (187)Os at the Karlsruhe 3.7 MV Van de Graaff accelerator and by neutron resonance analyses of the nTOF capture data to establish a comprehensive experimental basis for the Hauser-Feshbach statistical model. Consistent I-IF calculations for the capture and inelastic reaction channels were performed to determine the stellar enhancement factors, which are required to correct the Maxwellian averaged cross sections for the effect of thermally populated excited states. The consequences of this analysis for the s-process component of the (187)Os abundance and the related impact on the evaluation of the time-duration of Galactic nucleosynthesis via the Re/Os cosmo-chronometer are discussed.

Abstract: We describe nuclear effects in structure functions of nuclei in DIS by means of a multiplicative factor beta(A)(x) which differentiates the structure function of the bound nucleons from that of the free nucleons. Our analysis determines that beta(A)(x) establishes a relation between the quark-gluon dynamics expressed by the bound nucleon structure functions and the nuclear dynamics as described by the well-known semi-empirical Bethe-Weizsacker mass formula. This relation corroborates a connection between the underlying quark-gluon dynamics and the phenomenological nuclear dynamics.