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Nucleon Energy Correlators as a Probe of Light-Quark Dipole Operators at the Electron-Ion Collider

Yingsheng Huang1,2,*, Xuan-Bo Tong3,4,†, and Hao-Lin Wang5,6,‡

  • *Contact author: yingsheng.huang@outlook.com
  • †Contact author: xutong@jyu.fi
  • ‡Contact author: whaolin@m.scnu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 131902 – Published 2 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/7y5n-cscx

Abstract

We propose nucleon energy correlators (NECs) as a novel framework to probe electroweak light-quark dipole operators in deep inelastic scattering with an unpolarized nucleon. These operators encode chirality-flipping interactions, whose effects are usually quadratically suppressed in unpolarized cross sections. We construct a chiral-odd quark NEC that accesses quark transverse spin via azimuthal angle asymmetries in the energy flow of the target fragmentation region. These asymmetries serve as clean and powerful observables, enabling linear constraints on the quark dipole couplings. Unlike existing methods, our approach requires neither polarized nucleon beams nor final-state hadron identification, relying instead on fully inclusive calorimetric measurements. This Letter establishes one of the first applications of energy correlator observables to new physics searches and opens a promising direction for precision studies of chirality-flipping effects at electron-ion colliders.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 131902– Published 2 April, 2026
  • Received 25 August 2025
  • Revised 9 February 2026
  • Accepted 16 March 2026
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