Heavy-quark contributions to the polarized DIS structure functions at NLO in the ACOT scheme

A bstract This study explores the heavy-quark contributions to polarized structure functions in deep-inelastic scattering at next-to-leading order. The structure functions g 1 , g 4 , g 5 , g 6 , and g 7 are computed, while g 2 and g 3 are excluded due to the higher-twist suppression. The calculations are performed within the ACOT renormalization scheme, which ensures theoretical consistency across kinematic regions where heavy quarks transition from being dynamically produced to fully active degrees of freedom. By incorporating heavy-flavor contributions at next-to-leading-order, this work provides deeper insights into their role in polarized structure functions and the spin-dependent dynamics of QCD. Both analytical results and their numerical implementation are presented.