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Nuclear Theory·nucl-th

Thursday·June 4, 2026

11 papers—5 primary·6 cross-listed

All11Primary5Cross-lists6
  1. 06

    [Submitted on 29 May 2026] (cross-list from hep-ph)

    Canonical statistical hadronization with local baryon conservation for higher-order cumulants

    Mario Ciacco🇮🇹 · Sourav Kundu🇨🇭 · Volodymyr A. Kuznietsov🇺🇸 · Maximiliano Puccio🇨🇭 · Volodymyr Vovchenko🇺🇸

    We study higher-order cumulants of the conserved baryon number at the LHC within the canonical ensemble with local baryon conservation. We generalize the density correlations approach of [Phys. Rev. C 110, L061902 (2024)] to incorporate the effect of Gaussian local conservation in spatial rapidity space in cumulants up to 6th order. Gaussian local conservation improves upon the commonly employed approach, yielding comparable predictions at midrapidity, but marked differences for larger rapidity acceptances. Our coordinate-space results are in exact agreement with the diffusion master equation approach for all cumulant ratios up to . Using the blast-wave model to apply kinematic cuts, we obtain predictions for net-proton cumulants in O--O and Pb--Pb collisions at the LHC that establish an ideal hadron gas baseline. We find that local baryon conservation alone can drive to small or even negative values in restricted acceptance, a behavior often associated with chiral criticality. The conservation baseline must therefore be carefully accounted for when interpreting upcoming LHC measurements.

    Comments:
    20 pages, 8 figures
    Subjects:
    High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
    arXiv:
    2605.30710 [pdf]
    2 citations
  2. 07

    [Submitted on 1 Jun 2026] (cross-list from quant-ph)

    Quantum Simulation of Nucleon-Antinucleon Interaction in Large- QCD on an IBM Quantum Nighthawk Processor

    Cameron V. Cogburn🇺🇸 · Sebastian Grieninger🇺🇸 · Dmitri E. Kharzeev🇺🇸

    We report a quantum simulation of the nucleon--antinucleon interaction in large- two-dimensional quantum chromodynamics (QCD) on the IBM Quantum Nighthawk processor. In the large- limit, QCD admits a bosonized description in which baryons emerge as topological solitons (kinks) of an effective mesonic field theory, providing a controlled, nonperturbative framework for baryon--antibaryon dynamics. We formulate the problem by mapping the continuum bosonized Hamiltonian to a spin-chain representation equivalent to an XXZ model with anisotropy set by the QCD parameters. In this mapping, nucleon and antinucleon states correspond to kink and antikink excitations, respectively, while their interaction is encoded in the spin correlations of the chain. Using Jordan--Wigner encoding, we implement the resulting XXZ Hamiltonian on a finite set of qubits and realize it via a variational ground state ansatz and postselected nonunitary disorder operator insertions optimized for the Nighthawk architecture. We then show the kink--antikink interaction potential built from the conditional energies of these nonunitary string operators can be robustly extracted from the quantum hardware due to structured error cancelation. The resulting potential exhibits the expected attractive behavior. The quantum simulation results are benchmarked against exact diagonalization, ideal statevector evaluation showing good agreement. To connect the device result to the continuum field theory, we extract the potential in the continuum limit using large- matrix product state calculations.

    Comments:
    14 pages, 7 figures
    Subjects:
    Quantum Physics (quant-ph); High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
    arXiv:
    2606.02574 [pdf]
    2 citations
  3. 08

    [Submitted on 2 Jun 2026] (cross-list from quant-ph)

    Boson Models with Interactions of Arbitrary Order

    P. Van Isacker🇫🇷

    The paper considers quantal many-boson systems that are described by a rotationally invariant and boson-number conserving Hamiltonian. The properties of a generic model are studied which treats N bosons of p different kinds with non-zero angular momenta l_1,l_2,...,l_p, possibly augmented with a (number of) scalar s boson(s). The order k of the interaction between the bosons is arbitrary and closed formulas are given for matrix elements between N-boson states for any k if p=1 and p=2. A recursive procedure is defined for arbitrary k and p. With the expressions derived in the paper it is possible to express symbolically a Hamiltonian matrix element between N-boson states as a linear combination of k-body interaction matrix elements. More generally, the formulas allow the evaluation of matrix elements of tensor operators that are not necessarily scalar nor boson-number conserving. The numerical implementation of the formalism is discussed and illustrated with a few examples.

    Comments:
    31 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables
    Subjects:
    Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
    arXiv:
    2606.04055 [pdf]
    Symmetry(2026)·0 citations
  4. 09

    [Submitted on 2 Jun 2026] (cross-list from hep-ph)

    TMD factorization in diffractive heavy-quark production in photon-nucleus collisions

    Paul Caucal🇫🇷 · Patricia Gimeno-Estivill🇫🇮 · Edmond Iancu🇫🇷 · Tuomas Lappi🇫🇮 · Farid Salazar🇺🇸

    Using the Colour Glass Condensate effective theory, we study the diffractive production of a massive quark-antiquark pair accompanied by a gluon in coherent photon-nucleus collisions at high energy. This partonic configuration provides the leading twist contribution to the cross section in the correlation limit where two of the partons are hard and nearly back to back in the transverse plane, while the third one is semi-hard, with a transverse momentum of the order of the nuclear saturation momentum. We consider two scenarios: (i) a hard quark-antiquark pair together with a semi-hard gluon; in this case we demonstrate transverse momentum dependent (TMD) factorization with a mass-dependent ''hard'' factor and the standard expression for the gluon diffractive TMD, and (ii) a hard antiquark-gluon pair and a semi-hard quark; in this case we find TMD factorization with a mass-independent ''hard'' factor and a mass-dependent quark diffractive TMD, which represents a new result. We show that increasing the quark mass reduces (or even washes out) the effects of gluon saturation on the quark diffractive TMD. In particular, it leads to the suppression of the Cronin peak that we observe in the massless limit. Our results are the basis for future phenomenological studies of quarkonium and open charm production in the saturation regime in ultraperipheral collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, and in deep inelastic scattering at the Electron-Ion Collider.

    Subjects:
    High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
    arXiv:
    2606.04169 [pdf]
    1 citation
  5. 10

    [Submitted on 2 Jun 2026] (cross-list from hep-ph)

    Contact interaction treatment of {\pi} and {\rho} elastic and transition tensor form factors

    Ke-Yu Guo🇨🇳 · Ke-Xin Zeng🇨🇳 · Xin-Yu Bai🇨🇳 · Chen Chen🇨🇳 · Craig D. Roberts🇨🇳

    Predictions for tensor charges and form factors, elastic and transition, involving - and -mesons and their scalar and axialvector diquark partners, are delivered using a symmetry-preserving treatment of a vector*vector contact interaction (SCI). Two distinct SCI regularisation schemes are employed, with the results showing little sensitivity. Although, as typical in SCI analyses, the form factors are stiff; their infrared behaviour may be considered physically reliable. Notable amongst related quantities are the following: the pion tensor charge is approximately and the associated tensor form factor radius is practically the same as the pion charge radius; the -meson tensor charge is roughly 80% of that for the proton; and diquark tensor charges and form factors are semiquantitatively alike with those of their , partners. In addition to being interesting in themselves, the SCI predictions can serve as baselines for future studies with a closer connection to QCD.

    Comments:
    19 pages, 4 figures, 4 tables
    Subjects:
    High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph); High Energy Physics — Experiment (hep-ex); High Energy Physics — Lattice (hep-lat); Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
    arXiv:
    2606.04255 [pdf]
    0 citations
  6. 11

    [Submitted on 3 Jun 2026] (cross-list from hep-ph)

    Thermodiffusive coupled-transport phenomena in dense quark matter

    Kamaljeet Singh🇮🇳 · Kangkan Goswami🇮🇳 · Raghunath Sahoo🇮🇳

    Coupled-transport phenomena reveal that heat, charge, and particle flows are intrinsically interconnected, providing deeper insight into the microscopic dynamics of a medium than independent transport processes. We study the behavior of the coupled-transport coefficients in hot and dense quark matter within the framework of the 2+1 flavor Nambu--Jona--Lasinio model at finite temperature and quark chemical potential. These coefficients characterize coupled-transport phenomena, where particle diffusion is driven by temperature gradients (Soret effect) and heat flow is induced by gradients in chemical potential (Dufour effect). These coefficients are estimated by solving the relativistic Boltzmann transport equation using the relaxation time approximation with temperature-dependent cross sections. We study the scaled Soret and Dufour coefficients as functions of temperature and quark chemical potential across the QCD phase diagram. We aim to understand the intricate behavior of the coupled-transport coefficients near the chiral symmetry restoration region. Our results indicate that coupled-transport coefficients are sensitive to the chiral phase transition and provide the first systematic insight into the cross-coupled-transport properties in dense quark matter.

    Comments:
    8 pages and 3 captioned figures. Comments are highly welcome
    Subjects:
    High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph); High Energy Physics — Experiment (hep-ex); High Energy Physics — Theory (hep-th); Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
    arXiv:
    2606.04539 [pdf]
    0 citations

Affiliations

first authorsco-authorsvia INSPIRE