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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Quantum information at the electron-ion collider

Kun Cheng1,*, Tao Han1,†, and Sokratis Trifinopoulos2,3,4,‡

  • *Contact author: kun.cheng@pitt.edu
  • †Contact author: than@pitt.edu
  • ‡Contact author: trifinos@mit.edu
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Phys. Rev. D 114, L051301 – Published 8 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xytf-nhkh

Abstract

We investigate quantum information–theoretic observables in electron-proton scattering at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). Our analysis focuses on entanglement and magic, two complementary indicators of nonclassicality in quantum states. We show that while unpolarized and longitudinally polarized beams yield unentangled separable outcomes, transverse beam polarization enables the generation of entangled and nonstabilizer states. This result holds for both elastic and deep inelastic electron-proton scattering in QED. In the deep inelastic regime, the degree of quantum correlation is governed by the transversity parton distribution functions. Moreover, in the forward limit (Q2→0), the standard model predicts vanishing entanglement, furnishing a clean null test: any nonzero signal would indicate new physics, especially from helicity-flipping or chiral interactions. These results establish the EIC as a promising environment for generating entangled and nonstabilizer states in high-energy physics, and they highlight opportunities for future lepton-hadron colliders to extend such studies into new kinematic domains.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, L051301– Published 8 September, 2026
  • Received 4 November 2025
  • Accepted 7 July 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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