1639 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 demonstrates that requiring a causal, stable, and thermodynamically consistent extension of neutron-star equations of state to higher densities strongly disfavors purely nucleonic models and supports the presence of additional degrees of freedom in massive stable neutron stars.
This paper investigates how track functions, which encode the flow of energy from partons to charged hadrons, are modified by the quark-gluon plasma in heavy-ion collisions, demonstrating that their non-linear evolution and higher moments can discriminate between different jet quenching models and provide a direct test of quantum field theory predictions within the medium.
This paper calculates the radiative decay width of the to transition within the chiral unitary approach by treating both states as dynamically generated -wave hadronic molecules, finding a central width of 6.7 keV that is sensitive to form factors and residue phases, and proposes specific observables to test their molecular nature.
This paper proposes that ultra-high-energy cosmic ray clustering at tens of EeV is best explained by light nuclei originating from nearby galaxies and AGN within the Local Sheet, while offering alternative mechanisms involving neutrino interactions or heavy nuclei deflections for the highest-energy events.
This study utilizes the Zubarev non-equilibrium statistical operator approach to demonstrate that introducing an effective pion chemical potential successfully explains the low- enhancement in identified particle spectra from LHC heavy-ion collisions, offering a viable alternative to conventional resonance decay explanations.
This paper derives and numerically explores a momentum-dependent Beth-Uhlenbeck equation for Gaussian fluctuations in a generalized 2+1D Gross-Neveu model, revealing significant deviations from previous Lorentz-boosted approximations, including the resurrection of pseudoscalar bound states and substantial contributions from Landau modes to fluctuation pressure.
This paper reviews how the cosmological QCD phase transition in an inhomogeneous early Universe could simultaneously drive the formation of primordial black holes as dark matter candidates and enable the local synthesis of heavy r-process elements through the gravitational stabilization and evaporation of quark-gluon plasma droplets.
This paper summarizes the EMMI Rapid Reaction Task Force's findings on how recent experimental and theoretical advances challenge conventional macroscopic descriptions by demonstrating that collective, hydrodynamic-like behavior can emerge in mesoscopic quantum systems with few particles, thereby probing the limits of effective theories across size, equilibrium, and interaction frontiers.
This paper resolves the hyperfine puzzle by demonstrating that a minimax variational calculation based on the exact Dirac equation suppresses the effective magnetic moments of fermions at small radii, thereby preventing atomic collapse and ensuring the stability of hydrogen, positronium, and other two-fermion Coulombic systems.
This paper constructs a chiral three-nucleon force tailored to the new local Idaho position-space two-nucleon potential, demonstrating that a hybrid local and nonlocal regulator improves the description of binding energies and radii for nuclei up to Sn when the force's low-energy constants are constrained by H and O.