Event generation at MEPS@NLO accuracy in neutral and charged current DIS at the EIC

We present state-of-the-art hadron-level predictions for the deep-inelastic scattering process at next-to-leading-order precision for several multiplicities, consistently merged in one sample. For the first time at this level of accuracy, we consider both neutral and charged current deep-inelastic scattering at the Electron-Ion Collider and present the first application of consistent next-to-leading-order merging to charged current deep-inelastic scattering in general. We critically examine inclusive predictions using multileg merging techniques, contrasting perturbative and nonperturbative uncertainties. Further, we study typical kinematic deep-inelastic scattering observables as well as jet measurements and 1-jettiness with realistic cuts implied by expected and past detector resolution. On the perturbative side, we see large corrections toward small virtualities and Bjorken- <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <a:mi>x</a:mi> </a:math> , which can be captured by higher-multiplicity matrix elements and the merging procedure. Nonperturbative effects, while negligible in most jet observables, can reach similar size as the perturbative uncertainties around the peak of the 1-jettiness distributions especially at low values of <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <c:msup> <c:mi>Q</c:mi> <c:mn>2</c:mn> </c:msup> </c:math> .