Removing flat directions in standard model EFT fits: How polarized electron-ion collider data can complement the LHC

We study the potential of future electron-ion collider (EIC) data to probe four-fermion operators in the Standard Model effective field theory (SMEFT). The ability to perform measurements with both polarized electron and proton beams at the EIC provides a powerful tool that can disentangle the effects from different SMEFT operators. We compare the potential constraints from an EIC with those obtained from Drell-Yan data at the Large Hadron Collider. We show that EIC data play an important complementary role since they probe combinations of Wilson coefficients not accessible through available Drell-Yan measurements.