Isospin symmetry is well fulfilled in the QCD vacuum, as evidenced by small mass differences of isospin partners and suppressed isospin-violating decays. Recently, the NA61/SHINE collaboration reported an unexpectedly large isospin-violating charged-to-neutral kaon ratio in Ar-Sc heavy-ion collisions (HIC).Using a quark recombination approach, we introduce a function of kaon multiplicities that reduces to unity in the isospin-symmetric limit independently of the scattering energy and type of nuclei. Using this quantity, we show that nucleus-nucleus collisions violate isospin sizably (at the $6.4\sigma$--level), while proton-proton data on kaon multiplicities do not. We predict other isospin-violating enhancements in HIC, such as the proton-to-neutron ratio $p/n \sim 1.2$ and the hyperon ratio $\Sigma^{+}/\Sigma^{-}\sim1.4$. Finally, we extend the approach to antiquarks in the initial state, useful for e.g. pion-nucleus scattering reactions.

Noncentral heavy-ion collisions create fireballs with large initial orbital angular momentum that is expected to induce strong vorticity in the hot bulk fluid and generate global spin polarization of the produced particles. As the collision beam energy $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ decreases to approach the two-nucleon-mass threshold, this initial angular momentum approaches zero. One may thus expect that the observed global spin polarization should reach a maximum and then drop to zero as increased stopping competes with decreased initial momentum. Recent experimental measurements, however, appear to show a continual rise of hyperon polarization even down to $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} =$ 2.42 GeV, suggesting a peak very near threshold which is difficult to interpret and calls for a better understanding of angular momentum initial conditions, especially at low energy. Here, we develop a new Glauber-based initial state model ("Glauber+") to investigate the initial distribution of angular momentum with respect to rapidity as well as the dependence of this distribution on initial baryon stopping across a wide range of collisional beam energy. We estimate that the angular momentum per produced final charged particle at mid-rapidity peaks around 5 GeV, which may present a potential challenge to an interpretation of the spin polarization measurements near threshold as being a consequence of the initial angular momentum of the colliding system.

The $\beta$-decay properties of nuclei with neutron number $N = 126$ is investigated in this paper. Two different versions of the proton-neutron quasi particle random phase (pn-QRPA) model were employed to compute $\beta$-decay rates and half-lives for the N = 126 isotones. The first set of calculation solves the pn-QRPA equations using the schematic model (SM) approach. The Woods-Saxon potential was employed as a mean-field basis. A spherical shape assigned for each waiting point nuclei throughout all simulations. Both allowed Gamow-Teller (GT) and first-forbidden (FF) transitions were considered in the particle-hole (ph) channel. The second set uses the pn-QRPA model in deformed Nilsson basis to calculate $\beta$-decay rates for allowed GT and unique first-forbidden (U1F) transitions under terrestrial and stellar conditions. Our results are in agreement with shell model findings that first-forbidden transitions lead to a considerable decrement in the calculated half-lives of the isotones. Inclusion of the first-forbidden contribution led to a decent agreement of our computed terrestrial $\beta$-decay half-lives with measured ones, much better than the previous calculations. The possible implication of the waiting point nuclei on r-process nucleosynthesis is discussed briefly.

In astrophysical conditions prevalent during the late times of stellar evolution, lepton ($e^-$ and $e^+$) emission processes compete with the corresponding lepton capture processes. Prior to the collapse, lepton emissions significantly affect the cooling of the core and reduce its entropy. Therefore, the lepton emission rates for Fe-group nuclei serve as an important input for core-collapse simulations of high-mass stars. From earlier simulation studies, isotopes of vanadium (V) have great astrophysical significance in regard to their weak-decay rates, which substantially affect $Y_e$ (fraction of lepton to baryon number) during the final developmental stages of massive stars. The current study involves the computation of the weak lepton emission (LE) rates for V isotopes by employing the improved deformed proton-neutron Quasi-particle Random Phase Approximation (pn-QRPA) model. The mass numbers of the selected isotopes range from 43 to 64. The LE rates on these isotopes have been estimated for a broad spectrum of density and temperature under astrophysical conditions. The ranges considered for density and temperature are $10^1$ to $10^{11}$ (g/cm$^3$) and $10^7$ to $3 \times 10^{11}$ (K), respectively. The lepton emission rates from the present study were also compared to the rates previously estimated by using the independent-particle model (IPM) and large-scale shell model (LSSM). IPM rates are generally bigger than QRPA rates, while LSSM rates overall show a good comparison with the reported rates.

The present status of the mapped interacting boson model studies on nuclear structure is reviewed. With the assumption that the nuclear surface deformation induced by the multi-nucleon dynamics is simulated by bosonic degrees of freedom, the interacting-boson Hamiltonian that provides energy spectra and wave functions is determined by mapping the potential energy surface that is obtained from self-consistent mean-field calculations based on the energy density functional onto the corresponding energy surface of the boson system. This procedure has been shown to be valid in general cases of the quadrupole collective states, and has allowed for systematic studies on spectroscopic properties of medium-heavy and heavy nuclei, including those that are far from the line of $\beta$ stability. The method is extended to study intriguing nuclear structure phenomena that include shape phase transitions and coexistence, octupole deformation and collectivity, and the coupling of the single-particle to collective degrees of freedom, which is crucial to describe structures of odd nuclei, and $\beta$ and $\beta\beta$ decays.

In the late progressive stages of heavy stars, electron capture and $\beta^\pm$-decay are the governing processes. The weak rates are essential inputs for modeling the stages of high-mass stars before supernova explosions. As per results obtained from previous simulations, weak rates of Scandium isotopes contribute substantially in changing the lepton-to-baryon ratio ($Y_e$) of the nuclear matter in the core. In the present analysis, we report important $\beta^-$-decay properties of crucial Sc isotopes in an astrophysical environment with mass numbers $49 \leq A \leq 54$. The investigation includes Gamow-Teller (GT) strength distributions, terrestrial half-lives, and stellar rates of electron capture (EC) and $\beta^-$-decay reactions. The calculations are performed using the proton-neutron (pn) quasi-particle random phase approximation (QRPA) model over a wide temperature range ($10^7$-$3 \times 10^{10}$ K) and density range ($10^1 - 10^{11}$ g/cm$^3$). Additionally, we compare our calculated results with available experimental and theoretical data. A good agreement is observed between our calculated half-lives and experimentally measured values. Our weak $\beta^-$-decay and EC rates are compared with those from the Independent-Particle Model (IPM) and Large-Scale Shell Model (LSSM). At high stellar temperatures and densities, our calculated $\beta^-$-decay rates are smaller than those from the other models.

Smashing nuclei at ultrarelativistic speeds and analyzing the momentum distribution of outgoing debris provides a powerful method to probe the many-body properties of the incoming nuclear ground states. Within a perturbative description of initial-state fluctuations in the quark-gluon plasma, we express the measurement of anisotropic flow in ultra-central heavy-ion collisions as the quantum-mechanical average of a specific set of operators measuring the harmonic structure of the two-body azimuthal correlations among nucleons in the colliding states. These observables shed a new light on spatial correlations in atomic nuclei, while enabling us to test the complementary pictures of nuclear structure delivered by low- and high-energy experiments on the basis of state-of-the-art theoretical approaches rooted in quantum chromodynamics.

The preformation factor quantifies the probability of {\alpha} particles preforming on the surface of the parent nucleus in decay theory and is closely related to the study of {\alpha} clustering structure. In this work, a multilayer perceptron and autoencoder (MLP + AE) hybrid neural network method is introduced to extract preformation factors within the generalized liquid drop model and experimental data. A K-fold cross validation method is also adopted. The accuracy of the preformation factor calculated by this improved neural network is comparable to the results of the empirical formula. MLP + AE can effectively capture the linear relationship between the logarithm of the preformation factor and the square root of the ratio of the decay energy, further verifying that Geiger-Nuttall law can deal with preformation factor. The extracted preformation probability of isotope and isotone chains show different trends near the magic number, and in addition, an odd-even staggering effect appears. This means that the preformation factors are affected by closed shells and unpaired nucleons. Therefore the preformation factors can provide nuclear structure information. Furthermore, for 41 new nuclides, the half-lives introduced with the preformation factors reproduce the experimental values as expected. Finally, the preformation factors and {\alpha}-decay half-lives of Z = 119 and 120 superheavy nuclei are predicted.

We investigate the longitudinal nuclear suppression factor defined by a scaled ratio of rapidity distributions. To study this experimental observable, we describe three approaches involving numerical and analytical calculations. We first approach this problem by conducting model studies using EPOS, FTFP$_{BERT}$, and HIJING, and notice that while EPOS shows a decreasing trend of this ratio for increasing rapidity, the latter two model calculations display an increment of the ratio. The analytical approaches involve, first, the quasi-exponential distribution obtained from the Tsallis statistics, and second, the nonadditive Boltzmann transport equation in the relaxation time approximation. We notice that our analytical results satisfactorily describe NA61 experimental data (for $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=6.3, 7.6, 8.8, 12.3, and 17.3 GeV) for the negatively charged pions.

We perform a global analysis of deep-inelastic $e+p$ scattering data from HERA and transverse energy distributions in $p+p$ and $p+\Pb$ collisions, alongside charged hadron multiplicities in $\Pb+\Pb$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}} = 5.02\;\mathrm{TeV}$ from ALICE. Using a saturation-based initial state model grounded in high-energy QCD, we determine the early-time non-equilibrium shear viscosity to entropy density ratio $\eta/s$ of the quark-gluon plasma. Our results provide new insights into the early-time transport properties of nuclear matter under extreme conditions.

The D-measure of event-by-event net-charge fluctuations was introduced over 20 years ago as a potential signal of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in heavy-ion collisions, where it is expected to be suppressed due to the fractional electric charges of quarks. Measurements have been performed at RHIC and LHC, but the conclusion has been elusive in the absence of quantitative calculations for both scenarios. We address this issue by employing a recently developed formalism of density correlations and incorporate resonance decays, local charge conservation, and experimental kinematic cuts. We find that the hadron gas scenario is in fair agreement with the ALICE data for $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV Pb-Pb collisions only when a very short rapidity range of local charge conservation is enforced, while the QGP scenario is in excellent agreement with experimental data and largely insensitive to the range of local charge conservation. A Bayesian analysis of the data utilizing different priors yields moderate evidence for the freeze-out of charge fluctuations in the QGP phase relative to hadron gas. The upcoming high-fidelity measurements from LHC Run 2 will serve as a precision test of the two scenarios.

In this work, the perturbative and non-perturbative contributions to the heavy quark (HQ) momentum ($\kappa$) as well as spatial ($D_s$) diffusion coefficients are computed in a weak background magnetic field. The formalism adopted here involves calculation of the in-medium potential of the HQ in a weak magnetic field, which then serves as a proxy for the resummed gluon propagator in the calculation of HQ self-energy ($\Sigma$). The self-energy determines the scattering rate of HQs with light thermal partons, which is subsequently used to evaluate $\kappa$ and $D_s$. It is observed that non-perturbative effects play a dominant role at low temperature. The spatial diffusion coefficient $2\pi T D_s$, exhibits good agreement with recent LQCD results. These findings can be applied to calculate the heavy quark directed flow at RHIC and LHC energies. An extension of this formalism to the case of finite HQ momentum has also been attempted.

We present a novel method for defining the topological charge contained within distinct topological objects in the nontrivial ground-state fields of SU(N) lattice gauge theory. Such an analysis has been called for by the growing number of models for Yang-Mills topological structure which propose the existence of fractionally charged objects. This investigation is performed for SU(3) at a range of temperatures across the deconfinement phase transition, providing an assessment of how the topological structure evolves with temperature. This reveals a connection between the topological charge and holonomy of the system which must be satisfied by finite-temperature models of Yang-Mills vacuum structure. We find a promising consistency with the instanton-dyon model for SU(N) vacuum structure.

The formation of light nuclei in high-energy collisions provides valuable insights into the underlying dynamics of the strong interaction and the structure of the particle-emitting source. Understanding this process is crucial not only for nuclear physics but also for astrophysical studies, where the production of rare antinuclei could serve as a probe for new physics. This work presents a three-body coalescence model based on the Wigner function formalism, offering a refined description of light-nucleus production. By incorporating realistic two- and three-body nuclear interaction potentials constrained by modern scattering and femtoscopic correlation data, our approach improves on traditional coalescence models. The framework is validated using event generators applied to proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV to predict the momentum spectra of light (anti) nuclear nuclei with mass number $A=3$, which are then compared with the experimental data from ALICE. Our results demonstrate the sensitivity of light nucleus yields to the choice of nuclear wave functions, emphasizing the importance of an accurate description of the coalescence process. This model lays the foundation for the extension of coalescence studies of $A=3$ light nuclei to a wider range of collision systems and energies.

Mesons' internal structure and dynamics may be accessed through hard exclusive electroproduction processes such as deeply virtual Compton scattering in both near forward and near backward kinematics. With the help of the Sullivan process which allows us to use a nucleon target as a quasi-real $\pi$ meson emitter, we study backward scattering in the framework of collinear QCD factorization where pion-to-photon transition distribution amplitudes describe the photon content of the $\pi$ meson. We present a model of these TDAs based on the overlap of lightfront wave functions primarily developed for generalized parton distributions, using a previously developed pion lightfront wave function and deriving a new model for the lightfront wave functions of the photon. This leads us to an estimate of the cross-sections for JLab energies. We conclude that deeply virtual $ep\rightarrow e\gamma M n$ processes, in backward kinematics, may be experimentally discovered in the near future.