Publications

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• Two lectures on Yang-Lee edge singularity and analytic structure of QCD equation of state

  Vladimir V. Skokov

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 91 (2025) · published 7 March 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  These lecture notes, prepared for the 2024 XQCD PhD, provide an introduction to the analytic structure of an equation of state near a second-order phase transition and its most prominent landmark: the Yang-Lee edge singularity. In addition to discussing general properties, the notes review recent theoretical progress in locating the QCD critical point by tracking the trajectory of the Yang-Lee edge singularity.

  1 citation

• Codebase release 1.0 for NuHepMC

  Steven Gardiner, Joshua Isaacson, Luke Pickering

  SciPost Phys. Codebases 57-r1.0 (2025) · published 22 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · src

  Simulations of neutrino interactions are playing an increasingly important role in the pursuit of high-priority measurements for the field of particle physics. A significant technical barrier for efficient development of these simulations is the lack of a standard data format for representing individual neutrino scattering events. We propose and define such a universal format, named NuHepMC, as a common standard for the output of neutrino event generators. The NuHepMC format uses data structures and concepts from the HepMC3 event record library adopted by other subfields of high-energy physics. These are supplemented with an original set of conventions for generically representing neutrino interaction physics within the HepMC3 infrastructure.

  1 citation

• A quantum annealing protocol to solve the nuclear shell model

  Emanuele Costa, Axel Pérez-Obiol, Javier Menéndez, Arnau Rios, Artur García-Sáez, Bruno Juliá-Díaz

  SciPost Phys. 19, 062 (2025) · published 29 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The nuclear shell model accurately describes the structure and dynamics of atomic nuclei. However, the exponential scaling of the basis size with the number of degrees of freedom hampers a direct numerical solution for heavy nuclei. In this work, we present a quantum annealing protocol to obtain nuclear ground states. We propose a tailored driver Hamiltonian that preserves a large gap and validate our approach in a dozen nuclei with basis sizes up to $10^5$ using classical simulations of the annealing evolution. We explore the relation between the spectral gap and the total time of the annealing protocol, assessing its accuracy by comparing the fidelity and energy relative error to classical benchmarks. While the nuclear Hamiltonian is non-local and thus challenging to implement in current setups, the estimated computational cost of our annealing protocol on quantum circuits is polynomial in the single-particle basis size, paving the way to study heavier nuclei.

  1 citation

• Calculation of asymptotic normalization coefficients in the complex-ranged Gaussian basis

  Dinmukhamed A. Sailaubek, Olga A. Rubtsova

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 3, 043 (2020) · published 27 February 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A new technique towards finding asymptotic normalization coefficients in the complex-ranged Gaussian basis is presented. It is shown that a diagonalisation procedure for the total Hamiltonian matrix in the given basis results in approximation for a radial part of the bound state wave function from the origin up to the far asymptotic distances, which allows to extract ANCs rather accurately. The method is illustrated by calculations of single-particle ANCs for nuclei bound states in cases of non-local nucleon-nucleus interactions, in particular, phenomenological global potentials with the Perey-Buck's non-locality.

• Many-body perturbation theory for strongly correlated effective Hamiltonians using effective field theory methods

  Raphaël Photopoulos, Antoine Boulet

  SciPost Phys. 18, 003 (2025) · published 6 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Introducing low-energy effective Hamiltonians is usual to grasp most correlations in quantum many-body problems. For instance, such effective Hamiltonians can be treated at the mean-field level to reproduce some physical properties of interest. Employing effective Hamiltonians that contain many-body correlations renders the use of perturbative many-body techniques difficult because of the overcounting of correlations. In this work, we develop a strategy to apply an extension of the many-body perturbation theory starting from an effective interaction that contains correlations beyond the mean-field level. The goal is to re-organize the many-body calculation to avoid the overcounting of correlations originating from the introduction of correlated effective Hamiltonians in the description. For this purpose, we generalize the formulation of the Rayleigh-Schrödinger perturbation theory by including free parameters adjusted to reproduce the appropriate limits. In particular, the expansion in the bare weak-coupling regime and the strong-coupling limit serves as a valuable input to fix the value of the free parameters appearing in the resulting expression. This method avoids double counting of correlations using beyond-mean-field strategies for the description of many-body systems. The ground state energy of various systems relevant for ultracold atomic, nuclear, and condensed matter physics is reproduced qualitatively beyond the domain of validity of the standard many-body perturbation theory. Finally, our method suggests interpreting the formal results obtained as an effective field theory using the proposed reorganization of the many-body calculation. The results, like ground state energies, are improved systematically by considering higher orders in the extended many-body perturbation theory while maintaining a straightforward polynomial expansion.

• Instanton density operator in lattice QCD from higher category theory

  Jing-Yuan Chen

  SciPost Phys. 19, 158 (2025) · published 17 December 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A natural definition for instanton density operator in lattice QCD has long been desired. We show this problem is, and has to be, solved by higher category theory. The problem is solved by refining at a conceptual level the Yang-Mills theory on lattice, in order to recover the homotopy information in the continuum, which would have been lost if we put the theory on lattice in the traditional way. The refinement needed is a generalization—through the lens of higher category theory—of the familiar process of Villainization that captures winding in lattice XY model and Dirac quantization in lattice Maxwell theory. The apparent difference is that Villainization is in the end described by principal bundles, hence familiar, but more general topological operators can only be captured on the lattice by more flexible structures beyond the usual group theory and fibre bundles, making the language of categories natural and necessary. The key structure we need for our particular problem is called multiplicative bundle gerbe, based upon which we can construct suitable structures to naturally define the 2d Wess-Zumino-Witten term, 3d skyrmion density operator and 4d hedgehog defect for lattice $S^3$ (pion vacua) non-linear sigma model, and the 3d Chern-Simons term, 4d instanton density operator and 5d Yang monopole defect for lattice $SU(N)$ Yang-Mills theory; moreover, the structures behind the non-linear sigma model and the Yang-Mills theory are related via an implicit Yang-Baxter equation. In a broader perspective, higher category theory enables us to rethink more systematically the relation between continuum quantum field theory and lattice quantum field theory. We sketch a proposal towards a general machinery that constructs the suitably refined lattice degrees of freedom for a given non-linear sigma model or gauge theory in the continuum, realizing the desired topological operators on the lattice.

• Intermittency analysis in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

  Zhiming Li, Jin Wu

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 10, 006 (2022) · published 10 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Local density fluctuations near the QCD critical point can be probed by an intermittency analysis of power-law behavior on scaled factorial moments in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We study the second-order scaled factorial moment in Au + Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 7.7-200 GeV from the UrQMD model. Since the background subtraction and efficiency correction are two important aspects in this measurement, we propose a cumulative variable method to remove background contribution and a cell-by-cell method for efficiency correction in the intermittency analysis.

• Phenomenological study on correlation between flow harmonics and mean transverse momentum in nuclear collisions

  Chunjian Zhang, Jiangyong Jia, Shengli Huang

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 10, 009 (2022) · published 10 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  To assess the properties of the quark-gluon plasma formed in nuclear collisions, the Pearson correlation coefficient between flow harmonics and mean transverse momentum, $\rho\left(v_{n}^{2},\left[p_{\mathrm{T}}\right]\right)$, reflecting the overlapped geometry of colliding atomic nuclei, is measured. $\rho\left(v_{2}^{2},\left[p_{\mathrm{T}}\right]\right)$ was found to be particularly sensitive to the quadrupole deformation of the nuclei. We study the influence of the nuclear quadrupole deformation on $\rho\left(v_{n}^{2},\left[p_{\mathrm{T}}\right]\right)$ in $\rm{Au+Au}$ and $\rm{U+U}$ collisions at RHIC energy using $\rm{AMPT}$ transport model, and show that the $\rho\left(v_{2}^{2},\left[p_{\mathrm{T}}\right]\right)$ is reduced by the prolate deformation $\beta_2$ and turns to change sign in ultra-central collisions (UCC).

• Asymptotics of transverse momentum broadening in dense QCD media

  Paul Caucal

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 10, 018 (2022) · published 10 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the asymptotic behaviour of the transverse momentum broadening distribution of an energetic quark or gluon propagating through dense QCD matter, in the large system size $L$ limit, taking into account radiative corrections in the double logarithmic approximation. Thanks to a connection between the evolution of the jet quenching parameter $\hat{q}$ and the formation of traveling wave fronts in nonlinear physics, we obtain a formula for the $L$ dependence of the characteristic transverse momentum scale $Q_s$ of the distribution valid up to terms of order $1/\ln(L)$. We briefly discuss the physical implications of this formula for jet quenching and small-$x$ phenomenology.

• Lattice simulations of the QCD chiral transition at real $\mu_B$

  Attila Pasztor, Szabolcs Borsanyi, Zoltan Fodor, Matteo Giordano, Sandor D. Katz, Daniel Nogradi, Chik Him Wong

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 6, 002 (2022) · published 31 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Most lattice studies of hot and dense QCD matter rely on extrapolation from zero or imaginary chemical potentials. The ill-posedness of numerical analytic continuation puts severe limitations on the reliability of such methods. We studied the QCD chiral transition at finite real baryon density with the more direct sign reweighting approach. We simulate up to a baryochemical potential-temperature ratio of $\mu_B/T=2.7$, covering the RHIC Beam Energy Scan range, and penetrating the region where methods based on analytic continuation are unpredictive. This opens up a new window to study QCD matter at finite $\mu_B$ from first principles.