951 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 report synthesizes the outcomes of the 2025 EIC-France Workshop, outlining theoretical advancements and strategic priorities for the French hadron-physics community, with a specific focus on immediate opportunities in inclusive diffraction and quarkonium production alongside longer-term goals in pion structure and exclusive three-body final states.
This study demonstrates that correcting for "geometric inflation" artifacts in initial-state modeling of relativistic heavy-ion collisions significantly alters the sensitivity of final-state observables to nucleon size, thereby preventing biases in the extraction of nucleon structure and quark-gluon plasma properties.
This study reveals that despite a large parameter space in hybrid hydrodynamic models, the shape of scaled transverse momentum spectra exhibits surprisingly limited flexibility and significant tension with momentum-integrated observables, particularly regarding the nucleon width parameter and bulk viscosity.
This paper introduces sign-problem-free qubit-regularized lattice gauge theories in the monomer–dimer–tensor-network basis that successfully reproduce the confined and deconfined phases and universality classes of conventional SU(N) theories, suggesting a viable nonperturbative pathway to defining continuum limits for Yang–Mills theory.
This study analyzes the statistical properties of two-particle cumulants in pp, d-Au, and Au-Au collisions at RHIC energies, revealing that non-flow correlations consistently produce skewed distributions with increasing skewness and kurtosis in non-QGP models, whereas the HYDJET++ model yields a Gaussian distribution that diminishes to zero at larger pseudorapidity separations.
This study compares the 3FD and JAM models for central Au+Au collisions at 3–19.6 GeV, revealing that 3FD predicts stronger baryon stopping and larger macroscopic four-volumes of high baryon density due to a stiffer equation of state, with optimal energy ranges identified for creating matter exceeding three to six times normal nuclear density.
This paper presents a fully microscopic multichannel Resonating Group Method description of the 12C+12C fusion reaction at stellar energies, which successfully reproduces experimental scattering data, reveals the mixed nature of 24Mg resonances, predicts fusion hindrance at low energies, and lays the groundwork for reliable theoretical extrapolations to deep stellar burning temperatures.
This paper analyzes mid-2000s Jefferson Lab electron scattering data using a scaling variable that accounts for dynamical effects to demonstrate a linear correlation between the slope of inclusive cross-section ratios and the average nucleon removal energy, thereby highlighting the critical role of correlation effects in nuclear binding and the EMC effect.
This study utilizes the GiBUU framework to demonstrate that while pion final-state interactions have a moderate impact on proton decay search sensitivity in water Cherenkov detectors, the choice of Fermi momentum distribution constitutes the dominant systematic uncertainty affecting atmospheric neutrino background estimates.
This paper presents a finite-size scaling analysis of the chiral order parameter in (2+1)-flavor QCD using HISQ lattice data, demonstrating that infinite-volume extrapolated results align with expected scaling behavior while quantifying finite-size deviations to improve the precision of chiral phase transition temperature determinations.