Nuclear Theory·nucl-th

Thursday·March 12, 2026

11 papers—4 primary·7 cross-listed

01
[Submitted on 11 Mar 2026]
Insensitivity of the Coulomb breakup of halo nuclei to spectroscopic factors
Live-Palm Kubushishi · Pierre Capel
Exotic nuclear structures such as halos are mostly studied using reactions. In Coulomb breakup, the radioactive projectile dissociates through its interaction with a heavy target. Often, a spectroscopic factor for the core-halo structure is inferred from experimental data. In this work, we present a new calculation of the Coulomb breakup of the one-neutron halo nucleus $^{11}$ Be performed with a coupled-channel effective particle-rotor model of that nucleus, which accounts for the excitation of the $^{10}$ Be core. Changes in the spectroscopic factor have no effect on the cross sections when the asymptotic normalisation coefficient is fixed, hence confirming the insensitivity of Coulomb-breakup cross sections to spectroscopic factors.
Comments:
5 pages, 2 figures - This work has been accepted for publication in Physics Letters B
Subjects:
Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2603.10339 [pdf]
PLB(2026)·1 citation
02
[Submitted on 11 Mar 2026]
Systematic study of superheavy nuclei within a microscopic collective Hamiltonian: Impact of quantum shape fluctuations
X. Q. Yang · R. Y. Hu · R. N. Mao · J. Xiang · Z. P. Li
The even-even superheavy nuclei with $104 ⩽ Z ⩽ 126$ and $N ⩽ 258$ have been investigated using a microscopic five-dimensional collective Hamiltonian (5DCH) based on constrained triaxial relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov calculations with the PC-PK1 density functional. The 5DCH approach effectively captures the characteristic of isospin dependence of nuclear binding energies, two-nucleon separation energies, and $α$ -decay energies across isotopic chains and demonstrates consistent accuracy as $Z$ increases, underscoring the model's predictive power. The collective potentials, average quadrupole deformations, and characteristic collective observables: $E (2_{1}^{+})$ , $R_{42}$ , and $B (E 2; 2_{1}^{+} \to 0_{1}^{+})$ reveal a shape transition from well-prolate deformation around $N = 150$ and $N = 210$ to medium-deformed $γ$ -soft shape around $N = 176$ and $N = 246$ , and finally to a spherical shape near $N = 184$ and $N = 258$ for the isotopic chains with $104 ⩽ Z ⩽ 118$ . Oblate deformations are favored for $Z ⩾ 120$ isotopes around $N = 178$ . Remarkably, for a substantial range of transitional superheavy nuclei with $N ≳ 184$ and $N ≳ 240$ , no $0^{+}$ states bounded by the fission saddles are predicted within their very shallow potential wells due to quantum shape fluctuations (QSFs). Additionally, sharp variations predicted for two-neutron separation energies $S_{2 n}$ and $α$ -decay energies $Q_{α}$ at $N = 184$ and $258$ in mean-field calculations are significantly reduced and shifted to $N = 182$ and $256$ in the 5DCH calculations, which is caused by the rapid evolution of the dynamical correlation energies related to QSFs around the nuclear spherical shells.
Subjects:
Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2603.10361 [pdf]
PLB(2026)·0 citations
03
[Submitted on 11 Mar 2026]
Finite-Size Scaling of Net-Proton Cumulants in Heavy-Ion Collisions: Remarks on the Interpretation of a Recent Analysis
Roy A. Lacey (Department of Chemistry, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA)🇺🇸
Finite-size scaling (FSS) provides a framework for investigating the possible presence of a critical end point (CEP) in the QCD phase diagram using fluctuation observables measured in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. A recent analysis reported a finite-size scaling representation of a susceptibility constructed from net-proton cumulants and interpreted the resulting scaling behavior as evidence for a CEP near $μ_{B} \approx 625$ MeV \cite{FSSpaper}. This note examines several aspects of that scaling construction. These include identifying the pseudorapidity acceptance window with the physical system size used in the finite-size scaling relations, assessing the influence of acceptance-driven multiplicity scaling on the susceptibility used for the scaling analysis, and treating thermodynamic scaling fields in the scaling variable. These considerations clarify several issues relevant for the consistent implementation and interpretation of finite-size scaling analyses in heavy-ion collision experiments. Taken together, they indicate that the reported scaling behavior does not uniquely establish critical dynamics nor the presence of a CEP near $μ_{B} \approx 625$ MeV.
Comments:
~ 3pages, submitted
Subjects:
Nuclear Theory (nucl-th); High Energy Physics — Experiment (hep-ex); High Energy Physics — Theory (hep-th); Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex)
arXiv:
2603.10399 [pdf]
1 citation
04
[Submitted on 11 Mar 2026]
Radiative corrections to elastic electron-carbon scattering cross sections in comparison with experiment
D.H.Jakubassa-Amundsen🇩🇪
The influence of dispersion on the differential scattering cross section in the vicinity of the first diffraction minimum is revisited for collision energies between 200 and 450 MeV. Transient nuclear excitations in the giant resonance region with angular momentum L \leq 3 are taken into consideration within updated numerics. Moreover, the deviations of the nonperturbative QED corrections from the conventionally used smooth Born predictions are accounted for. A qualitative agreement with the measurements is only obtained for the lowest energy, while dispersion within the present model is too small at the higher energies.
Comments:
5 pages, 5 figures
Subjects:
Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2603.10783 [pdf]
0 citations
05
[Submitted on 27 May 2025] (cross-list from hep-ph)
Electromagnetic tomography of radial flow in the quark-gluon plasma
Lipei Du🇺🇸 · Ulrich Heinz🇺🇸
We present a novel multimessenger approach to extract the effective radial flow of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) by jointly analyzing thermal photon and dilepton spectra in heavy-ion collisions. A key feature of this method is that it circumvents the need for a directly unmeasurable reference -- the photon temperature in the absence of flow -- by establishing, within a calibrated model framework, a stable, approximately linear correlation with the dilepton-inferred temperature. This construction defines an experimentally constructible quantity, $v_{r}^{eff}$ , which reflects early-time collectivity and exhibits a strong correlation with the spacetime-averaged radial velocity of the QGP. Together with previous results linking dilepton slopes to the initial QGP temperature, our work establishes a consistent framework for electromagnetic tomography of the QGP. Our framework quantifies the experimental precision target, thereby providing a concrete roadmap for future measurements at RHIC and the LHC and opening a new avenue to probe the early-time dynamics of hot QCD matter.
Comments:
v1: 10 pages, 5 figures; v2: Expanded the discussion on the LHC and anisotropic flow; results remain unchanged. Accepted by Phys. Rev. Lett
Subjects:
High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph); Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2505.20752 [pdf]
PRL(2026)·6 citations
06
[Submitted on 10 Mar 2026] (cross-list from quant-ph)
The Gamow Golden Rule of Multichannel Resonances
Rafael de la Madrid🇺🇸 · Rodolfo Id Betan🇦🇷
We construct the Gamow Golden Rule of multichannel scattering, and use it to obtain the decay distributions, the partial decay constants, the partial decay widths, and the branching fractions of a resonance that has several decay modes. We exemplify the results using two coupled-channel square well potentials.
Subjects:
Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2603.10229 [pdf]
NPA(2026)·0 citations
07
[Submitted on 10 Mar 2026] (cross-list from hep-lat)
Topological structure of the entanglement radius of Yang-Mills flux tubes
Rocco Amorosso🇺🇸 · Sergey Syritsyn🇺🇸 · Raju Venugopalan🇺🇸
We expand on recent work arXiv:2601.17199 demonstrating the existence of a novel entanglement radius $ξ_{0}$ characterizing flux tube entanglement entropy (FTE $^{2}$ ) in (2+1)D Yang-Mills theory. This physical scale corresponds to the intrinsic thickness of the flux tube that must be fully severed by an entangling region for color degrees of freedom in the flux tube to contribute non-zero FTE $^{2}$ . We consider here geometries of the entanglement region $V$ on the lattice where the length of the region cross-cutting the flux tube is of the same magnitude as $ξ_{0}$ . Our results further the conclusions of arXiv:2601.17199 by adding detailed new information on the topological structure of the entanglement radius of color flux tubes.
Comments:
10 pages, 6 figures, Contribution to the 42nd International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (LATTICE2025), 2-8 Nov. 2025, Mumbai, India
Subjects:
High Energy Physics — Lattice (hep-lat); High Energy Physics — Theory (hep-th); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2603.10255 [pdf]
3 citations
08
[Submitted on 11 Mar 2026] (cross-list from cond-mat.quant-gas)
Effective theory of surface oscillations in self-bound superfluid droplets
Jun Mitsuhashi🇯🇵 · Keisuke Fujii🇯🇵 · Masaru Hongo🇯🇵
We investigate the low-energy dynamics of small-amplitude surface oscillations of spherical superfluid droplets in vacuum. Starting from the effective field theory of superfluid phonons, we derive an effective action governing the surface oscillations under a fixed particle-number constraint. The normal-mode eigenfrequencies $ω_{ℓ}$ for each angular momentum quantum number $ℓ$ are determined and shown to depend on a dimensionless parameter measuring the ratio of surface tension to bulk compressibility energy. We identify a critical value of this parameters at which the breathing mode ( $ℓ = 0$ ) becomes mechanically unstable, and show that all multipole surface modes with $ℓ \geq 2$ enter the low-energy regime when the surface tension is sufficiently small. Within this regime, we further quantize the surface oscillations, whose quanta correspond to ripplons, allowing the construction of general multi-ripplon states obeying angular-momentum selection rules. We also apply our formalism to a concrete example: a weakly interacting two-component Bose mixture realizing a self-bound superfluid droplet. The resulting description is universal in the sense that it applies to surface dynamics of generic nonrelativistic superfluids with a free interface, independent of microscopic details.
Comments:
17 pages, 4 figures
Subjects:
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas); High Energy Physics — Theory (hep-th); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2603.10304 [pdf]
PRA(2026)·0 citations
09
[Submitted on 11 Mar 2026] (cross-list from nucl-ex)
Quantifying uncertainty in physics-based predictions of rare-isotope production cross sections via Bayesian-inspired model averaging across nuclear mass tables
O. B. Tarasov
Accurate prediction of fragmentation cross sections is essential for rare-isotope beam production, planning new-isotope searches, and designing experiments to study the most exotic regions of the nuclear chart. However, existing reaction models and phenomenological cross-section parameterizations often exhibit significant deviations over broad regions of mass and charge. In this work, a Bayesian-inspired model-averaging framework is developed to combine abrasion--ablation (AA) calculations based on multiple nuclear mass tables into a single statistically weighted estimate. For the calibrated systems, the model weights are assigned empirically according to the relative quality of fit to measured cross sections, thereby reducing systematic model bias while preserving the underlying physics content of the AA description. The weights are constrained using proton-rich fragmentation data for the $^{78}$ Kr and $^{124}$ Xe projectiles. The resulting parameter trends are then propagated to the $^{92}$ Mo and $^{144}$ Sm systems through a controlled scaling procedure. In the present implementation, the excitation-energy prescription is fixed, while the averaging is performed across nuclear-mass inputs; the framework provides both weighted cross sections and associated uncertainty estimates. Applied to proton-rich fragmentation, the present approach provides a practical basis for interpolation and limited extrapolation in regions relevant to rare-isotope production. The resulting predictions are used to assess the production of very proton-rich nuclei, and candidate new isotopes are discussed.
Comments:
14 pages, 4 figures; Submitted to Phys. Rev. C
Subjects:
Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2603.10403 [pdf]
PRC(2026)·0 citations
10
[Submitted on 11 Mar 2026] (cross-list from astro-ph.HE)
Novae breves from magnetar giant flares: Potential probes of neutron star crusts
Jiahang Zhong🇨🇳 · Qiu-Hong Chen🇨🇳 · Yacheng Kang🇨🇳 · Hong-Bo Li🇨🇳 · Jinghao Zhang🇨🇳 · Meng-Hua Chen🇨🇳 · Lijing Shao🇨🇳
Matter ejected from the magnetar crust during giant flares (GFs) may undergo $r$ -process nucleosynthesis, producing short-lived optical transients termed "novae breves". Although intrinsically much fainter than kilonovae from compact binary mergers, novae breves may occur within or near the Galaxy, making them promising observational targets. We aim to investigate how the neutron star (NS) equation of state (EOS) and the mass of the central magnetar affect the ejecta properties following GFs and the resulting nova brevis emission. We employ a semi-analytical ejecta model combined with nuclear reaction network calculations to compute nucleosynthesis yields and multi-band light curves for different EOSs and magnetar masses, and assess their detectability with current and future facilities. We find that variations in the EOS and magnetar mass modify the ejecta mass and its density and velocity distributions, etc., leading to observable differences in nova brevis light curves. In particular, both the peak luminosity and the characteristic peak timescale are EOS-dependent. Assuming a fixed Galactic magnetar mass of 1.4 solar mass and taking the $u$ band as an example, we find that the minimum apparent AB magnitudes range from 7 mag (H4 EOS) to 8.5 mag (WFF EOS) with peak timescales of 100-1000 s. A more massive magnetar produces fainter emission with a shorter peak timescale. For a magnetar mass of 1.4 solar mass, novae breves associated with known magnetars may reach peak luminosities of 1e37-1e39 erg/s, enabling targeted searches, particularly following high-energy GF alerts. Moreover, a detection horizon of 10 Mpc or beyond is achievable with current and future facilities, allowing searches for novae breves from previously unknown magnetars in the Local Volume. Although challenging, detection of such rapidly evolving transients is feasible.
Comments:
Under final review at A&A, 10 pages, 7 figures
Subjects:
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2603.10500 [pdf]
Astron.Astrophys.(2026)·1 citation
11
[Submitted on 11 Mar 2026] (cross-list from nucl-ex)
Direct observation of three-neutron emission from $^{7}$ He $^{*}$ and the search for the trineutron
S. W. Huang🇨🇳 · C. Lenain🇫🇷 · Z. H. Yang🇨🇳 · F. M. Marqués🇫🇷 · J. Gibelin🇫🇷 · J. G. Li🇨🇳 · A. Matta🇫🇷 · N. A. Orr🇫🇷 · N. L. Achouri🇫🇷 · D. S. Ahn🇯🇵 · A. Anne🇫🇷 · T. Aumann🇩🇪 and 98 other authors
Three-neutron emission from $^{7}$ He has been directly measured for the first time, following neutron knockout from a $^{8}$ He beam at 156 MeV/nucleon. A resonance-like structure at $2.08 (4)$ MeV above the $^{4}$ He+ $3 n$ threshold [ $E_{x} = 2.68 (4)$ MeV] with a width of $3.9 (2)$ MeV was observed and deduced to arise predominately from the predicted $J^{π} = 3/ 2_{2}^{-}$ level. The three-neutron invariant-mass spectrum was reconstructed and found to peak at around 1 MeV and could, through complete simulations incorporating neutron-neutron correlations, be very well described by the sequential decay of $^{7}$ He $^{*}$ via the $2_{1}^{+}$ excited state of $^{6}$ He. No evidence was found for any significant three-neutron correlations beyond those expected from well-established two-body interactions, including a trineutron resonance.
Comments:
Accepted for publication in Physical Review Research
Subjects:
Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
arXiv:
2603.10859 [pdf]
PRResearch(2026)·2 citations

Affiliations

first authorsco-authorsvia INSPIRE