Towards the determination of CP-odd pion-nucleon couplings

Abstract

The nucleon matrix elements (NMEs) associated with quark chromo-magnetic dipole moments (cMDMs) play a crucial role in determining the CP-odd pion-nucleon couplings induced by quark chromo-electric dipole moments. In recent years, it has been argued that the NMEs of cMDMs can be related to the third moment of the nucleon's higher-twist (specifically, twist-three) parton distribution function (PDF) $e(x)$, which can, in principle, be measured through dihadron production in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering processes. By applying the spin-flavor expansion to the cMDM operators in the large-$N_c$ limit, where $N_c$ is the number of quark colors, we show that the NMEs receive contributions not only from the twist-three PDF $e(x)$ but also from an additional, previously neglected nucleon form factor. Incorporating constraints from the spin-flavor expansion, recent experimental data on $e(x)$, as well as model calculations of $e(x)$, we estimate the NMEs of the cMDM operators. Our analysis indicates that the NMEs are dominated by the nucleon form factors, and the cMDM contributions to pion-nucleon couplings can be comparable to those from the quark sigma terms.