QCD corrections to light-quark dipole sensitivity via transverse spin asymmetries at the Electron-Ion Collider

We consider the effects of next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to transverse spin asymmetries (TSAs) in deep inelastic scattering at the future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) with polarized electron and proton beams that depend on light quark dipole operators. The TSAs are robust under the inclusion of the NLO QCD effects and provide sensitivity to new physics that is complementary to limits extracted from the Drell-Yan measurements at the LHC and from neutron electric dipole moments. The major uncertainty on our results is from the poor existing determination of the transversity parton distribution function for the down quark. Interesting relations from parity and time reversal invariance, along with chiral symmetry, constrain the analytic form of the TSAs.