Tackling the kaon structure function at EicC

Measuring the kaon structure beyond proton and pion structures is a prominent topic in hadron physics, as it is one way to understand the nature of the Nambu-Goldstone boson of QCD and observe the interplay between the EHM and HB mechanisms for hadron mass generation. In this study, we present a simulation of the leading Λ baryon tagged deep inelastic scattering experiment at EicC (Electron-ion collider in China), which is engaged to unveil the internal structure of kaon via the Sullivan process. According to our simulation results, the suggested experiment will cover the kinematical domain of \begin{document}$ 0.05\lesssim x_{\rm K} \lesssim 0.85 $\end{document} and \begin{document}$ Q^2 $\end{document} up to 50 GeV\begin{document}$ ^2 $\end{document}, with the acceptable statistical uncertainties. In the relatively low-\begin{document}$ Q^2 $\end{document} region (\begin{document}$ <10 $\end{document} GeV\begin{document}$ ^2 $\end{document}), the Monte-Carlo simulation shows a good statistical precision (\begin{document}$ <5 $\end{document}%) for the measurement of the kaon structure function \begin{document}$ F_2^{\rm K} $\end{document}. In the high-\begin{document}$ Q^2 $\end{document} region (up to 50 GeV\begin{document}$ ^2 $\end{document}), the statistical uncertainty of \begin{document}$ F_2^{\rm K} $\end{document} is also acceptable (\begin{document}$ <10 $\end{document}%) for the data at \begin{document}$ x_{\rm K}<0.8 $\end{document}. To perform such an experiment at an electron-ion collider, a high-performance zero-degree calorimeter is suggested. The magnitude of the background process and the assumed detector capabilities are also discussed and illustrated in the paper.