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  • Open Access

Flavor physics at the EIC with b-jet tagging

Shaouly Bar-Shalom1,* and Jose Wudka2,†

  • *Contact author: shaouly@gmail.com
  • †Contact author: jose.wudka@ucr.edu
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 095009 – Published 5 May, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/1sz1-dhvn

Abstract

We employ an approximate conserved quantum number [defined as “b parity” in Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 3722 (2001)] of the Standard Model (SM): bP=(−1)n, where n is the number of produced b jets in the reaction e+p/A→n·jb+X, to explore new TeV-scale flavor-changing interactions involving the third-generation quarks at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC); simply by counting the number of b jets in the final state. In particular, the SM single and dijet production at the EIC, which occurs through charge current interactions, e+p/A→j+ET and e+p/A→2·j+ET, are bP even since the bP-violating (i.e., bP=−1) SM signals for these processes are necessarily Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa suppressed and, therefore, have a vanishingly small production rate. In contrast, new flavor physics can generate bP=−1 signals at the EIC whose only significant SM background is due to b-jet misidentification. We thus show that bP can be used as a simple and sensitive probe of new flavor-violating physics; specifically, we find that counting single b-jet events in e+p/A→j+ET at the EIC with a center-of-mass (c.m.) energy of s∼140  GeV can probe scales of new physics up to Λ≲O(5)  TeV for a certain type of new chiral flavor-changing physics in third-generation interactions. This is remarkably more than 30 times larger than the assumed EIC c.m. energy and it critically depends on the b-tagging efficiency and purity as well as the feasibility of electron beam polarization. The sensitivity of the dijet process, e+p/A→2j+ET, to these types of new physics is reduced compared to the single-jet channel.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 095009– Published 5 May, 2026
  • Received 15 January 2026
  • Accepted 8 April 2026
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