1396 papers
Nuclear theory sits at the fascinating intersection of particle physics and the forces that hold our universe together. This field explores how protons and neutrons bind inside atomic nuclei, seeking to understand the fundamental interactions that govern matter at its most dense and energetic levels. While the mathematics involved can be incredibly complex, the core questions are deeply human: how does the universe function at its smallest scales, and what happens when we push matter to its limits?
At Gist.Science, we make these cutting-edge discoveries accessible by processing every new preprint published in this category on arXiv. Our team transforms dense academic manuscripts into clear, plain-language summaries alongside detailed technical overviews, ensuring that both experts and curious readers can grasp the latest breakthroughs without getting lost in the jargon. Below are the latest papers in nuclear theory, distilled and ready for you to explore.
This paper proposes a three-flavor chiral quark-diquark model where the parity doublet structure and chiral-invariant mass of baryons originate from scalar and pseudoscalar diquarks bound via gluon dynamics, successfully reproducing the baryon spectrum and predicting a distinctive inverted mass hierarchy for nucleons and hyperons as a signature of chiral symmetry restoration.
This study employs a Bayesian analysis of charged-particle nuclear modification factors across four collision systems (O+O, Ne+Ne, Xe+Xe, and Pb+Pb) to determine that parton energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma scales with an effective path-length exponent of , decisively favoring a radiative mechanism over collisional or strong-coupling scenarios and confirming a universal energy-loss regime from small to large systems.
This paper reviews the current multimessenger constraints on the neutron star equation of state, outlines the ongoing challenges in determining the microscopic composition of stellar cores, and highlights recent advances from SQM2026 and the MUSES Calculation Engine toward a unified description of strongly interacting matter across astrophysical and heavy-ion collision environments.
This paper develops an analytical framework using a self-similar plasma expansion model to derive a closed-form expression for the effective reaction energy window and fusion reactivity of non-thermal ions accelerated by Target Normal Sheath Acceleration, demonstrating that conventional thermal Gamow window interpretations are insufficient for accurately describing laser-driven nuclear reactions.
This paper analyzes four formulations of perfect spin hydrodynamics for spin-1/2 particles, demonstrating that they constitute a divergence-type theory which is both nonlinearly causal and stable through a nonperturbative approach utilizing exact distribution functions.
This paper provides an introductory overview of nuclear structure, covering basic observables, a qualitative description of nuclear forces, and an outline of widely used models for interpreting experimental data in terms of interacting protons and neutrons.
This paper determines the asymptotic normalization coefficients for the Li H channels by analyzing elastic -H scattering data using three consistent methods, yielding average values of fm and fm that confirm the expected relationship with mirror nuclei.
Using a unified purely hadronic equation of state with an incompressibility of 230 MeV, the study successfully reproduces proton flow data in Au+Au collisions up to 4.3 GeV but fails at 4.5 GeV, providing circumstantial evidence for the onset of partonic degrees of freedom and the hadron-quark phase transition.
This study reanalyzes the inelastic excitation of the one-neutron halo nucleus C using a three-body CDCC model to demonstrate that while breakup effects are crucial for describing elastic scattering, the current theoretical framework still fails to fully reproduce the experimental inelastic angular distribution, suggesting the need to investigate additional reaction mechanisms.
This study systematically analyzes the sensitivity of Ag(,xn) reaction cross sections to statistical-model inputs using TALYS 2.0, revealing that the relative importance of level-density models, pre-equilibrium mechanisms, and -optical potentials varies significantly across different reaction channels, with no single parameter combination optimally describing all investigated processes.