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.

Chirality in (p,2p)(\vec{p},2p) reactions induced by proton helicity

This paper demonstrates that longitudinally polarized protons can induce chirality in the final states of intermediate-energy (p,2p)(\vec{p},2p) reactions involving non-coplanar momenta, a phenomenon quantified by the analyzing power AzA_z and explained through the coupling of incident proton helicity to the orbital chirality of single-particle wave functions.

Tomoatsu Edagawa, Kazuki Yoshida, Shoichiro Kawase, Kazuyuki Ogata, Masaki Sasano2026-03-24⚛️ nucl-ex

Femtoscopic signatures of unique nuclear structures in relativistic collisions

Using the AMPT model, this study demonstrates that femtoscopic source parameters of pion pairs in 208^{208}Pb+20^{20}Ne and 208^{208}Pb+16^{16}O collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 68.5 GeV serve as robust signals for detecting unique nuclear structures and initial shape deformations, thereby expanding the scope of nuclear structure investigations to femtoscopic observables.

Daniel Kincses2026-03-24⚛️ nucl-th

Matching from quark to hadronic operators: external source vs spurion methods

This paper presents a systematic spurion method that establishes a one-to-one correspondence between low-energy effective theory and chiral Lagrangian operators for weak processes, overcoming the limitations of external source and conventional spurion approaches by avoiding the need for additional spurions when matching higher-dimensional operators relevant to neutrino physics and neutrinoless double beta decay.

Gang Li, Chuan-Qiang Song, Jiang-Hao Yu2026-03-24⚛️ nucl-th

Baryon anti-Baryon Photoproduction Cross Sections off the Proton

The GlueX experiment at Jefferson Lab reports the first observations of ΛΛˉ\Lambda\bar{\Lambda} and pΛˉp\bar{\Lambda} photoproduction alongside ppˉp\bar{p} production, revealing forward-peaked angular distributions consistent with Regge-like tt-channel exchanges and a phenomenological double-exchange model, while finding no narrow resonant structures and observing a suppression of ssˉs\bar{s} pairs similar to other reactions.

F. Afzal, M. Albrecht, M. Amaryan, S. Arrigo, V. Arroyave, A. Asaturyan, A. Austregesilo, Z. Baldwin, F. Barbosa, J. Barlow, E. Barriga, R. Barsotti, D. Barton, V. Baturin, V. V. Berdnikov, A. Berger (…)2026-03-24⚛️ nucl-ex

Investigation of Nuclear Modification Factor from RHIC to LHC energies using Boltzmann Transport equation in conjunction with q-Weibull distribution

This paper presents a theoretical model combining the Boltzmann Transport equation with a q-Weibull distribution to successfully describe the nuclear modification factor of charged and identified hadrons across a wide range of collision energies from RHIC to LHC, revealing a linear mass dependence in key fit parameters.

Rohit Gupta2026-03-24⚛️ nucl-th