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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Probing the neutron skin thickness through jet charge in deep-inelastic scattering

Shan-Liang Zhang1,2,3,*, Enke Wang2,4,†, Xin-Nian Wang5,‡, and Hongxi Xing2,4,6,§

  • 1Department of Physics, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China
  • 2State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, Institute of Quantum Matter, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China
  • 3Key Laboratory of Atomic and Subatomic Structure and Quantum Control (MOE), Guangdong-Hong Kong Joint Laboratory of Quantum Matter, Guangzhou 510006, China
  • 4Guangdong Basic Research Center of Excellence for Structure and Fundamental Interactions of Matter, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Nuclear Science, Guangzhou 510006, China
  • 5Key Laboratory of Quark and Lepton Physics (MOE) & Institute of Particle Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
  • 6Southern Center for Nuclear-Science Theory (SCNT), Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huizhou 516000, China

  • *Contact author: zhangshanl@hubu.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: wangek@scnu.edu.cn
  • ‡Contact author: xnwang@ccnu.edu.cn
  • §Contact author: hxing@m.scnu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. C 114, L041901 – Published 20 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/zc6z-ss9j

Abstract

The neutron-skin thickness in neutron-rich nuclei has traditionally been measured using low-energy hadronic and electronic scatterings at hadronic level. In this paper, we propose an alternative probe to the neutron-skin thickness through deep-inelastic scattering in high-energy electron-ion collisions, leveraging the intrinsic correlation between final-state jet charge distribution and initial-state partonic distributions in nucleons. Specifically, we demonstrate the sensitivity of jet charge distribution to the neutron skin-thickness and density profile in e+Pb collisions with varying centralities as determined using Glauber model, and in isobar collisions of e+Ru and e+Zr. We predict a strong suppression of positive jet charge distribution and an enhancement for negative jet charge distribution in peripheral electron-ion collisions, revealing the neutron-skin effect. Premised on the effective determination of centrality, this proposal can also be extended to photon and Z-boson tagged jet charge distribution in proton-nucleus collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, providing another similar access to neutron-skin structure.

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Phys. Rev. C 114, L041901– Published 20 October, 2026
  • Received 16 July 2025
  • Revised 26 August 2026
  • Accepted 18 September 2026
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