{"title":"Unveiling the sea: universality of the transverse momentum dependent quark distributions at small x","authors":"Paul Caucal , Marcos Guerrero Morales , Edmond Iancu , Farid Salazar , Feng Yuan","doi":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140271","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140271","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Within the Colour Glass Condensate effective theory, we demonstrate that back-to-back dijet correlations in dilute-dense collisions involving a small-<em>x</em> quark from the nuclear target can be factorised in terms of universal transverse momentum dependent distributions (TMDs) for the sea quarks. Two building blocks are needed to construct all these TMDs at the operator level: the sea quark TMD operator which appears in semi-inclusive Deep-Inelastic Scattering (SIDIS) or in the Drell-Yan process and the elastic <em>S</em>-matrix for a quark-antiquark dipole. Compared to SIDIS, the saturation effects are stronger for dijet production in forward proton-nucleus collisions, due to additional scattering in the initial and final state, effectively resulting in a larger value for the nuclear saturation momentum.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20162,"journal":{"name":"Physics Letters B","volume":"874 ","pages":"Article 140271"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146152806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Physics Letters BPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-22DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140285
Zi-Xiao Zhang , Yi-Long Yang , Wan-Bing He , Peng-Wei Zhao , Bing-Nan Lu , Yu-Gang Ma
{"title":"Machine learning the single-Λ hypernuclei with neural-network quantum states","authors":"Zi-Xiao Zhang , Yi-Long Yang , Wan-Bing He , Peng-Wei Zhao , Bing-Nan Lu , Yu-Gang Ma","doi":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140285","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140285","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A thorough description of baryonic system beyond first-generation quark sector is indispensable for the maturation of nuclear <em>ab initio</em> methods. This study pioneers the application of neural-network quantum states to hypernuclei, with trainable parameters determined by variational Monte Carlo approach (VMC-NQS). In order to reduce the numerical uncertainty and treat the nucleons and hyperons in a unified manner, spinor grouping (SG) method is proposed to analytically integrate out isospin degrees of freedom. With SG method and spin symmetry enforcement, the Λ separation energies of <em>s</em>-shell hypernuclei are computed with one-thousandth level accuracy and benchmarked against existing results from stochastic variational method, showing superior performance. By comparing two different sets of Hamiltonian based on pionless effective field theory (<span><math><mrow><mi>π</mi><mi≯</mi></mrow></math></span>EFT), we choose an optimal model and further carry out calculations of selected <em>p</em>-shell charge-symmetric hypernuclei with mass number up to 13, exhibiting satisfactory consistency with experimental results. Our work underscores the potential of the VMC-NQS family for the in-depth probing of hypernuclear systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20162,"journal":{"name":"Physics Letters B","volume":"874 ","pages":"Article 140285"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146777457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Physics Letters BPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-09DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140263
J. Yu. Panteleeva , E. Epelbaum , J. Gegelia , U.-G. Meißner
{"title":"On the definition of the nucleon axial charge density","authors":"J. Yu. Panteleeva , E. Epelbaum , J. Gegelia , U.-G. Meißner","doi":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140263","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140263","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We work out the spatial density distributions corresponding to the axial-vector charge density operator for spin-1/2 systems using states described by sharply localized wave packets. The static approximation, leading to the frequently assumed Breit-frame distributions, is also considered. We discuss the interpretation of the resulting spatial densities in terms of the axial charge density.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20162,"journal":{"name":"Physics Letters B","volume":"874 ","pages":"Article 140263"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146146650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Physics Letters BPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-07DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140262
Y. Y. Huang, X. H. Wu
{"title":"Principal components of nuclear mass model residuals","authors":"Y. Y. Huang, X. H. Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140262","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140262","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is applied to the residuals of six widely used nuclear mass models to uncover systematic deviations and identify missing physical effects in theoretical nuclear mass predictions. By analyzing the principal components of nuclear mass model residuals, this study reveals that no single dominant pattern governs the discrepancies across models. Instead, the residual structures are largely uncorrelated, indicating that current nuclear mass models fail to capture underlying nuclear residual effects in distinct and model-specific ways. These findings suggest that improvements to nuclear mass models should be guided by model-specific residual analyses rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Model-specific residual patterns are suggested for six nuclear mass models respectively.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20162,"journal":{"name":"Physics Letters B","volume":"874 ","pages":"Article 140262"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146134629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Physics Letters BPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-01-30DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140214
Rimantas Lazauskas , Arnoldas Deltuva , Daniel Gazda , Martin Schäfer
{"title":"Resonant states in three- and four-body hypernuclear systems","authors":"Rimantas Lazauskas , Arnoldas Deltuva , Daniel Gazda , Martin Schäfer","doi":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140214","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140214","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using realistic nuclear and hyperon–nucleon interactions obtained from chiral effective field theory, we explore the possible existence of resonant states in three- and four-body strangeness S=-1 hypernuclear systems. In particular, we focus on Feshbach resonant states near the Σ-hyperon production threshold. We firmly identified <span><math><mrow><msup><mi>J</mi><mi>π</mi></msup><mo>=</mo><mn>1</mn><mo>/</mo><msup><mn>2</mn><mo>+</mo></msup></mrow></math></span> Σ<em>NN</em> as well as <span><math><mrow><msup><mi>J</mi><mi>π</mi></msup><mo>=</mo><msup><mn>0</mn><mo>+</mo></msup></mrow></math></span> Σ<em>NNN</em> states and determined their positions and widths to draw conclusions on their experimental observability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20162,"journal":{"name":"Physics Letters B","volume":"874 ","pages":"Article 140214"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146089288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Physics Letters BPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-12-26DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2025.140132
Brandon Kriesten , Alex NieMiera , William Good , T.J. Hobbs , Huey-Wen Lin
{"title":"Decoding the proton’s gluonic density with lattice QCD-informed machine learning","authors":"Brandon Kriesten , Alex NieMiera , William Good , T.J. Hobbs , Huey-Wen Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.physletb.2025.140132","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.physletb.2025.140132","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We present a first machine learning-based decoding of the gluonic structure of the proton from lattice QCD using a variational autoencoder inverse mapper (VAIM). Harnessing the power of generative AI, we predict the parton distribution function (PDF) of the gluon given information on the reduced pseudo-Ioffe-time distributions (RpITDs) as calculated from an ensemble with lattice spacing <em>a</em> ≈ 0.09 fm and a pion mass of <em>M<sub>π</sub></em> ≈ 310 MeV. The resulting gluon PDF is consistent with phenomenological global fits within uncertainties, particularly in the intermediate-to-high-<em>x</em> region where lattice data are most constraining. A subsequent correlation analysis confirms that the VAIM learns a meaningful latent representation, highlighting the potential of generative AI to bridge lattice QCD and phenomenological extractions within a unified analysis framework.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20162,"journal":{"name":"Physics Letters B","volume":"874 ","pages":"Article 140132"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145844945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Physics Letters BPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-01-27DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140195
{"title":"Observation of tt¯γγ production at s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140195","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140195","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper presents the first observation of top-quark pair production in association with two photons (<span><math><mrow><mi>t</mi><mover><mi>t</mi><mo>¯</mo></mover><mi>γ</mi><mi>γ</mi></mrow></math></span>). The measurement is performed in the single-lepton decay channel using proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb<span><math><msup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></math></span> recorded during Run 2 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The <span><math><mrow><mi>t</mi><mover><mi>t</mi><mo>¯</mo></mover><mi>γ</mi><mi>γ</mi></mrow></math></span> production cross section, measured in a fiducial phase space based on particle-level kinematic criteria for the lepton, photons, and jets, is found to be <span><math><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>.</mo><msubsup><mn>42</mn><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>0.53</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>+</mo><mn>0.58</mn></mrow></msubsup><mspace></mspace><mtext>fb</mtext></mrow></math></span>, corresponding to an observed significance of 5.2 standard deviations. Additionally, the ratio of the production cross section of <span><math><mrow><mi>t</mi><mover><mi>t</mi><mo>¯</mo></mover><mi>γ</mi><mi>γ</mi></mrow></math></span> to top-quark pair production in association with one photon is determined, yielding <span><math><mrow><mrow><mo>(</mo><mn>3</mn><mo>.</mo><msubsup><mn>30</mn><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>0.65</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>+</mo><mn>0.70</mn></mrow></msubsup><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>×</mo><msup><mn>10</mn><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>3</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></math></span>.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20162,"journal":{"name":"Physics Letters B","volume":"874 ","pages":"Article 140195"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146071693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Physics Letters BPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-07DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140260
Adnan Malik , Zoya Asghar , M. Zeeshan Gul , Wenbin Lin , Fatemah Mofarreh
{"title":"Effect of scalar potential and Karmarkar condition on charged traversable wormholes","authors":"Adnan Malik , Zoya Asghar , M. Zeeshan Gul , Wenbin Lin , Fatemah Mofarreh","doi":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140260","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140260","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates charged traversable wormhole solutions in <em>f</em>(<em>R, ϕ</em>) modified gravity, where <em>R</em> denotes the Ricci scalar and <em>ϕ</em> represents a scalar field. Employing the Karmarkar embedding condition within a spherically symmetric spacetime, we derive exact wormhole geometries and visualize their spatial structure through three-dimensional Euclidean embeddings. Our analysis focuses on three representative <em>f</em>(<em>R, ϕ</em>) models, demonstrating how the synergy between modified gravity and the scalar field facilitates wormhole solutions that significantly reduce the requirement for exotic matter, as evidenced by characteristic energy condition violations. The inclusion of an electromagnetic field proves crucial for stabilizing the wormhole throat against gravitational collapse. Through a detailed examination of the equilibrium conditions, we establish stable configurations where gravitational, hydrostatic, and anisotropic forces attain precise balance according to a generalized Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff equation. These findings indicate that <em>f</em>(<em>R, ϕ</em>) gravity provides a theoretically robust framework for traversable wormholes, potentially mitigating the need for unrealistic matter content. The resulting solutions satisfy all geometric and physical requirements for traversability while yielding testable predictions for scenarios involving modified gravity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20162,"journal":{"name":"Physics Letters B","volume":"874 ","pages":"Article 140260"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146138537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Physics Letters BPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-09DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140268
Alejandro Ibarra , Aadarsh Singh , Sudhir K Vempati
{"title":"Flavour from fractal mass chains","authors":"Alejandro Ibarra , Aadarsh Singh , Sudhir K Vempati","doi":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140268","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140268","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We explore the possibility that the underlying flavour structure of the Standard Model could be determined by mass chains on a fractal geometry. We consider, as an example, the theory space on a Sierpinski-like geometry. The fermion mass chains on a Sierpinski-like geometry with three decorations (iterations) lead to three zero modes, which can be identified with the three generations of the Standard Model. This framework also reproduces the measured charged and neutral lepton masses and mixing angles with very few parameters. We also briefly discuss the possible extension to the quark sector.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20162,"journal":{"name":"Physics Letters B","volume":"874 ","pages":"Article 140268"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146146652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Physics Letters BPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-13DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140240
P. Laskos-Patkos , S. Papadopoulos , Ch.C. Moustakidis
{"title":"Binding energy of compact stars and their non-radial oscillations","authors":"P. Laskos-Patkos , S. Papadopoulos , Ch.C. Moustakidis","doi":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140240","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140240","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the past years, a significant effort has been made with the scope of determining correlations, involving compact star properties, that are independent of the nuclear equation of state. Such universal relations are of utmost importance as they allow for the imposition of constraints on stellar properties without directly measuring them and they may also serve as a probe of General Relativity. In the present study, we investigated the possible existence of a universal relation between the binding energy of compact stars and the frequency of their non-radial oscillations. The main motivation was related to the fact that both of the aforementioned quantities might be measured in the occurrence of a supernova explosion. Interestingly, we found that there is an empirical relation between the oscillation frequency and the binding energy for both <em>f</em> and <em>p</em><sub>1</sub> modes, assuming hadronic stellar matter. The inclusion of hybrid equations of state, incorporating sharp phase transitions, was shown to result into deviations from the aforementioned quasi-universal relation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20162,"journal":{"name":"Physics Letters B","volume":"874 ","pages":"Article 140240"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146209383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}