Nuclear Theory·nucl-th

Monday·June 9, 2025

11 papers—5 primary·6 cross-listed

01
[Submitted on 5 Jun 2025]
Simulated-Annealing Optimization of Mean-Field Parameters in a Correlated-Basis Nuclear Model with Realistic Short-Range Correlations
Tianyang Ma · Shalom Shlomo
We optimize a six-parameter spherical Woods-Saxon mean field within a first-order correlated-basis-function description of finite nuclei containing central, spin-isospin, and tensor Short-Range Correlations (SRC). Monte Carlo importance sampling makes the multidimensional simulated-annealing search practical. The final objective contains 17 selected charge radii compared with a common theoretical scale of 0.030 fm. This light-to-heavy set is a representative compromise between mass-isospin coverage and the cost of repeatedly evaluating the correlated objective;Two independent fits are performed: S/S, in which the SRC theory uses its own fitted parameters, and 0/0, in which the no-SRC theory uses a separately fitted parameter set. A diagnostic S/0 calculation inserts the no-SRC-fitted parameters into the SRC theory. Its radius metric is 17.49 times the S/S value, demonstrating that the mean field must be refitted when explicit SRC are introduced. After separate optimization, radii, charge densities, and elastic form factors show no universal advantage for either consistent route. The corrected genuinely off-diagonal OBDM retains both uncorrelated kernels and the complete spectator-exchange spin contraction. In momentum space, the correlated S/S and diagnostic S/0 calculations generate the several-percent high-momentum strength observed in 12C and 40Ca, whereas the consistent no-SRC route 0/0 does not. The high-momentum tail is therefore the clearest signature of explicit SRC in the present calculation.
Comments:
Will be submitted to Nuclear Physics A
Subjects:
Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2506.05512 [pdf]
0 citations
02
[Submitted on 5 Jun 2025]
Bayesian Inference of the Landau Parameter $G_{0}^{'}$ from Joint Gamow-Teller Measurements
Zidu Lin · Gianluca Colò · A. W. Steiner · Amber Stinson
The Landau-Migdal parameter $G_{0}^{'}$ characterizes the main part of the spin-isospin dependent nucleon-nucleon interaction. Consequently, the $G_{0}^{'}$ is closely related to the Gamow-Teller resonance (GTR), the beta and double-beta decay rates of finite nuclei, the response of hot and dense nucleonic matter that modifies the neutrino-nucleon absorption rates in core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) and binary neutron star (BNS) mergers, and finally the critical density for pion condensation in neutron stars. In this letter, for the first time, we report the $G_{0}^{'}$ with quantified uncertainty in the framework of Bayesian inference, using a self-consistent standard Skyrme Random Phase Approximation (RPA) model and joint constraints from experimental GTR measurements on $^{208} Pb$ , $^{132} Sn$ , $^{90} Zr$ . Our extracted $G_{0}^{'}$ is $0.48 \pm 0.034$ , which is close to the prediction of a few existing Skyrme models that consider spin-isospin observables but smaller than the traditional ones extracted from pion-exchange models. We hint to possible reasons for this deviation, like the value of the nucleon effective mass $\frac{m ^{*}}{m}$ . The $G_{0}^{'}$ values extracted in this work may guide the construction of new energy density functionals that aims to self-consistently describe the dense matter properties in the spin-isospin channel.
Comments:
The scope of this manuscript is refined to focus on the Bayesian study of $G_{0}^{'}$ . The study of neutrino opacity and the correlation emerging from the Bayesian posterior of Skyrme models will be presented in a separate work (in preparation)
Subjects:
Nuclear Theory (nucl-th); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
arXiv:
2506.05564 [pdf]
3 citations
03
[Submitted on 5 Jun 2025]
Bayesian inference of neutron star crust properties using an ab initio-benchmarked meta-model
S. Burrello🇮🇹 · F. Gulminelli🇫🇷 · M. Antonelli🇫🇷 · M. Colonna🇮🇹 · A. Fantina🇫🇷
Accurate modeling of the neutron star crust is essential for interpreting multimessenger observations and constraining the nuclear equation of state (EoS). However, standard phenomenological EoS models often rely on heuristic extrapolations in the low-density regime, which are inconsistent with microscopic predictions. In this work, we refine a unified meta-modeling framework for the EoS by incorporating low-density corrections based on energy density functionals constrained by ab initio neutron-matter calculations. Using Bayesian inference to combine information from astrophysical observations, nuclear theory, and experiments, we assess the impact of these corrections on key crustal properties, including the crust-core transition density and pressure, crustal composition, and moment of inertia. The improved model reduces uncertainties in the inner crust and emphasizes the importance of low-density physics in EoS modeling, highlighting the value of integrating both theoretical and observational constraints across densities to robustly describe the EoS. Moreover, the adopted approach can be readily applied to any existing EoS model to provide a solid framework for interpreting upcoming high-precision multimessenger data.
Subjects:
Nuclear Theory (nucl-th); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
arXiv:
2506.05603 [pdf]
PRC(2025)·12 citations
04
[Submitted on 6 Jun 2025]
Femtoscopic signatures of unique nuclear structures in relativistic collisions
Daniel Kincses🇭🇺
One of the most vital topics of today's high-energy nuclear physics is the investigation of the nuclear structure of the collided nuclei. Recent studies at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have shown that several observables, such as the collective flow and transverse-momentum correlations of the produced particles, can be sensitive to various nuclear structure and deformation parameters. Femtoscopy, another essential tool for investigating the space-time geometry of the matter created in nuclear collisions, has not yet been widely applied to such studies. Using a multiphase transport model (AMPT), in this Letter, it is demonstrated that the femtoscopic source parameters of pion pairs can also serve as a robust signal of unique nuclear structure. Through an analysis of $^{208}$ Pb+ $^{20}$ Ne and $^{208}$ Pb+ $^{16}$ O collisions at $s_{N N}$ = 68.5 GeV, two collision systems especially relevant to the SMOG2 program of the LHCb experiment, it is shown that a deformed initial shape can significantly affect femtoscopic source parameters. This study highlights the importance of expanding the nuclear structure investigations to femtoscopic observables and serves as a baseline for numerous possible future studies in this new direction.
Comments:
8 pages, 5 figures
Subjects:
Nuclear Theory (nucl-th); High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph)
arXiv:
2506.05849 [pdf]
PRResearch(2025)·7 citations
05
[Submitted on 6 Jun 2025]
Representing Equations of State With Strong First-Order Phase Transitions
Lee Lindblom · Steve M. Lewis · Fridolin Weber
Parametric representations of the high-density nuclear equation of state are used in constructing models for interpreting the astrophysical observations of neutron stars. This study explores how accurately equations of state with strong first-order phase transitions can be represented using spectral or piecewise analytic methods that assume no {\it{a priori}} knowledge of the location or the strength of the phase transition. The model equations of state used in this study have phase transitions strong enough to induce a gravitational instability that terminates the sequence of stable neutron stars. These equations of state also admit a second sequence of stable stars with core matter that has undergone this strong first-order phase transition (possibly driven by quark deconfinement). These results indicate that spectral representations generally achieve somewhat higher accuracy than piecewise analytic representations having the same number of parameters. Both types of representation show power-law convergence at approximately the same rate.
Comments:
9 pages, 15 figures
Subjects:
Nuclear Theory (nucl-th); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
arXiv:
2506.06201 [pdf]
PRD(2025)·3 citations
06
[Submitted on 5 Jun 2025] (cross-list from hep-ex)
Measuring spin correlation between quarks during QCD confinement
The STAR Collaboration
The vacuum is now understood to possess a rich and complex structure, characterized by fluctuating energy fields and a condensate of virtual quark-antiquark pairs. The spontaneous breaking of the approximate chiral symmetry, signaled by the nonvanishing quark condensate $⟨ q q ˉ ⟩$ , is dynamically generated through topologically nontrivial gauge configurations such as instantons. The precise mechanism linking the chiral symmetry breaking to the mass generation associated with quark confinement remains a profound open question in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) - the fundamental theory of strong interaction. High energy proton-proton collisions could liberate virtual quark-antiquark pairs from the vacuum that subsequently undergo confinement to form hadrons, whose properties could serve as probes into QCD confinement and the quark condensate. Here, we report evidence of spin correlations in $Λ Λ ˉ$ hyperon pairs inherited from spin-correlated strange quark-antiquark virtual pairs. Measurements by the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory reveal a relative polarization signal of $(18 \pm 4) %$ that links the virtual spin-correlated quark pairs from the QCD vacuum to their final-state hadron counterparts. Crucially, this correlation vanishes when the hyperon pairs are widely separated in angle, consistent with the decoherence of the quantum system. Our findings provide a new experimental paradigm for exploring the dynamics and interplay of quark confinement and entanglement.
Subjects:
High Energy Physics — Experiment (hep-ex); High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph); High Energy Physics — Theory (hep-th); Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2506.05499 [pdf]
Nature(2026)·37 citations
07
[Submitted on 5 Jun 2025] (cross-list from nucl-ex)
Investigation of $^{31}$ P levels near the proton threshold by Nuclear Resonance Fluorescence and the impact on the $^{30}$ Si(p, $γ$ ) $^{31}$ P thermonuclear rate
David Gribble (1 and 2) · Christian Iliadis (1 and 2) · Robert V.F. Janssens (1 and 2) · Udo Friman-Gayer (3 and 2) · Akaa D. Ayangeakaa (1 and 2) · Art Champagne (1 and 2) · Emily Churchman (1 and 2) · William Fox (4 and 2) · Steven Frye (1 and 2) · Xavier K.-H. James (1 and 2) · Samantha R. Johnson (1 and 2) · Richard Longland (4 and 2) and 4 other authors
We investigated the nuclear structure of $^{31}$ P near the proton threshold using Nuclear Resonance Fluorescence (NRF) to refine the properties of key resonances in the $^{30}$ Si(p, $γ$ ) $^{31}$ P reaction, which is critical for nucleosynthesis in stellar environments. Excitation energies and spin-parities were determined for several states, including two unobserved resonances at $E_{r}$ $=$ $18.7$ ~keV and $E_{r}$ $=$ $50.5$ ~keV. The angular correlation analysis enabled the first unambiguous determination of the orbital angular momentum transfer for these states. These results provide a significant update to the $^{30}$ Si(p, $γ$ ) $^{31}$ P thermonuclear reaction rate, with direct implications for models of nucleosynthesis in globular clusters and other astrophysical sites. The revised rate is substantially lower than previous estimates at temperatures below $200$ ~MK, affecting predictions for silicon isotopic abundances in stellar environments. Our work demonstrates the power of NRF in constraining nuclear properties, and provides a framework for future studies of low-energy resonances relevant to astrophysical reaction rates.
Comments:
12 pages, 7 figures, to be published in Physical Review C
Subjects:
Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2506.05559 [pdf]
PRC(2025)·1 citation
08
[Submitted on 6 Jun 2025] (cross-list from quant-ph)
Pathfinding Quantum Simulations of Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay
Ivan A. Chernyshev🇺🇸 · Roland C. Farrell🇺🇸 · Marc Illa🇺🇸 · Martin J. Savage🇺🇸 · Andrii Maksymov🇺🇸 · Felix Tripier🇺🇸 · Miguel Angel Lopez-Ruiz🇺🇸 · Andrew Arrasmith🇺🇸 · Yvette de Sereville🇺🇸 · Aharon Brodutch🇺🇸 · Claudio Girotto🇺🇸 · Ananth Kaushik🇺🇸 · Martin Roetteler🇺🇸
We present results from co-designed quantum simulations of the neutrinoless double-beta decay of a simple nucleus in 1+1D quantum chromodynamics using IonQ's Forte-generation trapped-ion quantum computers. Electrons, neutrinos, and up and down quarks are distributed across two lattice sites and mapped to 32 qubits, with an additional 4 qubits used for flag-based error mitigation. A four-fermion interaction is used to implement weak interactions, and lepton-number violation is induced by a neutrino Majorana mass. Quantum circuits that prepare the initial nucleus and time evolve with the Hamiltonian containing the strong and weak interactions are executed on IonQ Forte Enterprise. Enabled by tuned model parameters, lepton-number violation is observed in real time, providing a clear signal of neutrinoless double-beta decay. This was made possible by co-designing the simulation to maximally utilize the all-to-all connectivity and native gate-set available on IonQ's quantum computers. Quantum circuit compilation techniques and co-designed error-mitigation methods, informed from executing benchmarking circuits with up to 2,356 two-qubit gates, enabled observables to be extracted with high precision. We discuss the potential of future quantum simulations to provide yocto-second resolution of the reaction pathways in these, and other, nuclear processes.
Comments:
35 pages, 15 figures, 7 tables
Subjects:
Quantum Physics (quant-ph); High Energy Physics — Lattice (hep-lat); High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2506.05757 [pdf]
Nature Commun.(2026)·17 citations
09
[Submitted on 6 Jun 2025] (cross-list from hep-lat)
Center vortices in the novel phase of staggered fermions
Jackson A. Mickley🇦🇺 · Derek B. Leinweber🇦🇺 · Daniel Nogradi🇭🇺
The geometry of center vortices is studied in the novel lattice-artefact phase that appears with staggered fermions to elucidate any insight provided by the center-vortex degrees of freedom. For various numbers of fermion flavors, the single-site shift symmetry of the staggered-fermion action is broken in a finite region of the $(β, m)$ phase space. Simulations are performed with six degenerate fermion flavors and a range of $β$ values that span the phase boundary. Center vortices are demonstrated to capture the broken shift symmetry that manifests in the unphysical phase. This persists at the level of each individual plaquette orientation, where it is revealed that only the plaquettes that span the broken dimension are affected. Several bulk center-vortex quantities, including the vortex and branching point densities, are considered to highlight other aspects of vortex geometry sensitive to the unphysical phase. A slight preference for the plaquettes affected by the broken shift symmetry to be pierced by a vortex is observed. This translates also to a greater branching point density in three-dimensional slices that span the broken dimension. Combined, these findings provide a novel characterization of the unphysical phase in terms of the fundamental center degrees of freedom.
Comments:
11 pages, 16 figures. Version accepted for publication
Subjects:
High Energy Physics — Lattice (hep-lat); High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph); High Energy Physics — Theory (hep-th); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2506.05807 [pdf]
PRD(2025)·0 citations
10
[Submitted on 6 Jun 2025] (cross-list from nucl-ex)
Angela and the electric dipole response -- giant and pygmy, hot and cold, isoscalar and isovector
Peter von Neumann-Cosel (1,2) ((1) Institut für Kernphysik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany, (2) Norwegian Nuclear Research Center and Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway)
The impact of Angela Bracco's work on the electric dipole response of nuclei is discussed using three examples of current nuclear structure problems: disentangling different contributions to the decay width of the giant dipole resonance, the equivalence of photo- absorption and emission and the nature of the pygmy dipole resonance.
Comments:
14 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J. A as part of the topical issue dedicated to Angela Bracco on the occasion of her farewell from Milano University
Subjects:
Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2506.06050 [pdf]
EPJA(2025)·1 citation
11
[Submitted on 6 Jun 2025] (cross-list from hep-ph)
Initial stage jet momentum broadening in tBLFQ formalism
Dana Avramescu🇫🇮 · Carlos Lamas🇪🇸 · Tuomas Lappi🇫🇮 · Meijian Li🇪🇸 · Carlos A. Salgado🇪🇸
We study the momentum broadening of a high-energy quark jet in the large density gluon medium created right after the collision of two ultrarelativistic heavy nuclei, the Glasma. Previous Glasma studies modeled the jet as a classical probe particle, for which position and momentum are simultaneously determined. In this work, we use the light-front QCD Hamiltonian formalism to treat the jet as a fully quantum state. We compute its real-time evolution while propagating through the Glasma classical background fields, which act as an interaction potential in the quantum evolution of the jet. We present results for the momentum broadening and jet quenching parameter of a jet at mid-rapidity, with special emphasis on the anisotropies between the longitudinal and transverse directions relative to the collision axis. In addition, we compare our results to classical calculations, and initiate a study of the distinction between kinetic and canonic momentum in the context of jet momentum broadening.
Comments:
6 pages, 2 figures. Proceedings to the talk by CL at Hard Probes 2024
Subjects:
High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2506.06206 [pdf]
EPJ Web Conf.(2025)·3 citations

Affiliations

first authorsco-authorsvia INSPIRE