Purpose: Characterize superfluid-superconducting vortex states at arbitrary pressures with $T_{cp}\neq T_{cn}$, assuming both proton and neutron mean-fields are formed by spin-0 Cooper pairs. Method: The existing mean-field theory is extended to account for $T_{cp}\neq T_{cn}$. The pressure dependence of the pairing gap energy $\Delta_{\alpha0}$ is quantitatively established on the basis of the effective chiral field theory. To link $T_{c\alpha}$ with $\Delta_{\alpha0}$, I use the weak-coupling result $T_{c\alpha}\approx0.57\Delta_{\alpha0}$. A quadratic scaled-temperature ($T/T_{cp}$) dependence of the thermodynamic magnetic field is postulated in analogy with pure superconductors. The $T/T_{c\alpha}$-dependence of the gap $\Delta_{\alpha T}$ is inferred from the many-body approximations for the pure neutron matter. Results: An empirical $T/T_{c\alpha}$-dependence for the mean-field is constructed to account for the interplay between the condensation and the magnetic energies. The superfluid entrainment is found to increase the size of the vortex core and to decrease the effective magnetic penetration depth. The size of the neutron vortex core is found to be larger than the magnetic penetration depth in the outer core. Conclusions: The usual approximation of infinitely thin vortex line (the London's approximation) for the neutron vortex is found to be irrelevant in the entire outer core and for the proton vortex is found to be limited to vicinity of the crust-core transition. The developed mean-field theory paves the way to study the vortex microscopic structure, the angular momentum, the magnetization and the vortex-fluxtube interaction energy.

We have derived a rigorous theoretical proof of the Strutinsky energy theorem. This proof not only provides a proper interpretation of the shell-correction decomposition, resolving decades of confusion, but also lays a foundation for constructing nuclear density functionals.

Cluster production plays an important role in heavy-ion collisions at intermediate beam energies, where light nuclei contribute substantially to final-state yields and to other observables that are used to infer the nuclear equation of state. In this letter, we propose a new approach for clustering that combines dynamical transport and thermal cluster production for mid-rapidity particles. The resulting hybrid coarse-graining model matches nucleon and light-cluster descriptions at freeze-out while properly accounting for thermal non-uniformity and collective transport in the hot, strongly interacting systems created in heavy-ion collisions. To illustrate the capabilities of this model, yields at 4~fm impact parameter, spectra and elliptic flows at 7.4~fm ($20\text{--}30\%$ centrality) are predicted at mid-rapidity for semi-peripheral Au$+$Au collisions at an incident energy of $E_\text{lab}=1.23~A\mathrm{GeV}$.

Symmetry-violating observables such as the nuclear anapole and Schiff moments provide sensitive probes of the fundamental symmetries of nature and physics beyond the Standard Model. Their interpretation has been hindered, however, by the lack of ab initio nuclear structure calculations in the medium-mass and heavy nuclei of interest to experimentalists. To provide them, we introduce a new version of the in-medium similarity renormalization group (IMSRG) designed to target parity-violating operators. By generalizing the IMSRG flow equations to evolve the weak symmetry-breaking Hamiltonian - and the anapole or Schiff operators - alongside the strong nuclear Hamiltonian, we construct a systematically improvable framework for computing these parity-violating moments. We benchmark the method against the no-core shell model in light nuclei and obtain the first ab initio predictions of the anapole moment in $^{29}$Si and the Schiff moments in $^{129}$Xe. These heavier systems are of direct experimental interest.

Based on relativistic mean field theory for atomic nuclei, we compute the mass radius and other radii associated with the energy momentum tensor for dozens of spin-0 nuclei across the nuclear chart. We also compute the D-term of these nuclei, the forward limit of the gravitational form factor $D(t=0)=D$. The dependence on the neutron number $N$ is systematically studied for calcium (Ca), nickel (Ni), zirconium (Zr), tin (Sn) and lead (Pb) isotopes. Remarkably, $|D|$ does not monotonically increase with $N$. Instead, it exhibits local maxima and minima when $N$ equals a magic number and even a sub-magic number. This results in characteristic kinks in the mass, scalar, tensor and shear radii of these isotopes. Our work for the first time elucidates the strong sensitivity of the various mechanical properties of nuclei to the nuclear shell structure.

We construct a toy model of a nucleon, in which three static quarks interact via a SU(3) gauge field on a planar honeycomb lattice. The dynamics of the gauge field is described by the Kogut-Susskind Hamiltonian, truncated to the lowest three SU(3) irreducible representations. We show that the internal structure of the toy nucleon reflects salient features of the physical nucleon state. We then find the entanglement entropy of the gauge field within the nucleon state and compute its time evolution after a quench, in which all three valence quarks are suddenly removed. We show that the entanglement entropy in the final state is dominated by the dynamically generated contribution rather than the initial state entropy.

It was proposed recently that the Schrödinger wave function can be reconstructed exactly from a discrete superposition of classical action branches weighted by associated classical densities, without semiclassical approximations. We examine this construction for quantum tunneling through finite potential barriers and for quantum phase phenomena. Although formally consistent when the Hamilton-Jacobi equation admits globally defined real branches, the construction breaks down in classically forbidden regions where no real classical action exists. Using rectangular and Coulomb barrier tunneling in alpha decay and nuclear fusion, we show that the wave function requires either a non-vanishing quantum potential or complex-valued action. The growing barrier component fixed by global boundary conditions is essential for transmission and cannot arise from local real classical trajectories alone. Berry phase, flux quantization, Josephson tunneling, and dc SQUID interference likewise impose global phase constraints absent from local classical action transport.

The intruder bands in Sn isotopes, built on the 2p-2h excitation across the $Z = 50$ proton shell gap, are well-known examples of shape coexistence near the neutron mid-shell region. Spectroscopic signatures for shape coexistence include enhanced $E0$ transitions between the $0^+$ band heads. However, the underlying shape coexistence and mixing has been unclear because lifetime information for the excited $0^+$ states was incomplete in $^{118}$Sn. We thus present here the first measurement of the $0^+_3$ lifetime in $^{118}$Sn using the fast-timing technique following thermal-neutron capture. The observed enhancement in $\rho^2(E0; 0^+_3 \rightarrow 0^+_2)$ of 150(30) milliunits provides compelling indications for multiple shape coexistence in $^{118}$Sn. Additionally, three distinct shapes in $^{116,118,120}$Sn naturally emerged in theoretical calculations based on the quantum-number-projected generator coordinate method employing a relativistic energy density functional.

We present model calculations for the in-medium suppression of the Y(1S,2S,3S) states in sqrt(s_NN)=5.02 TeV Pb-Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider in comparison with recent CMS data for all three spin-triplet s-wave states. The model parameters initial central temperature, and formation times for the Y(nS) states are determined in simultaneous chi^2 minimizations with respect to the data, such that the sequential centrality- and transverse-momentum-dependent suppression of the observed states is reproduced.

A compact analytical scheme is presented for describing ultra-dense hadronic matter, which combines a multicomponent van der Waals (vdW)-type description with temperature-dependent effective degrees of freedom. Although the vdW formalism successfully reproduces interactions at finite density, in its standard form it cannot describe lattice-QCD thermodynamics, since it uses a fixed degeneracy. It is shown that a consistent description of the equation of state requires a temperature-dependent degeneracy $g(T)$ and an effective chemical potential $\mu(T)$. Within this approach, the trace anomaly (the trace of the energy-momentum tensor), i.e. the measure of nonconformality of the energy-momentum tensor normalized to $T^4$, is naturally reproduced together with its peak structure near the crossover region. The effective chemical-potential sector becomes particularly important in baryon-rich matter, whereas for the mesonic sector a separate dynamical description of the degrees of freedom is required.

The photoproduction of $J/\Psi$ in peripheral Oxygen - Oxygen ($OO$) collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is investigated considering distinct assumptions for the modeling of the nuclear photon flux, overlap function and dipole - proton scattering amplitude. Predictions for the associated rapidity distributions and total cross - sections are presented. Our results indicate that the experimental study of the photoproduction of $J/\Psi$ in peripheral $OO$ collisions is, in principle, feasible. In addition, they point out that the combination of the results for this final state in $OO$ collisions with those obtained for $PbPb$ collisions will allow us to derive important constraints on the description of photon - induced process at peripheral collisions.

In this work, we provide a novel method to constrain the causal parameter space of a relativistic hydrodynamic system exclusively from its linear stability analysis at non-zero momenta. Our approach exploits the Lorentz-invariant stability property of causal theories. In boosted frames, the dispersion relation exhibits a feature that we call ``$\gamma$-suppression,'' whereby the higher-order terms in the wavenumber expansion are increasingly suppressed beyond leading order at large boosts. As a consequence, at near-luminal values of Lorentz boost, stability criteria at the spatially homogeneous limit are sufficient to identify the region of the parameter space that satisfies the necessary conditions of causality, even at non-zero momenta. After presenting the general hydrodynamic framework, we test the method in conformal Müller-Israel-Stewart theory and show that it provides an efficient way of deriving the necessary conditions of causality while remaining within the low-energy regime of hydrodynamic validity.

The natural and Dyson orbitals are studied for small helium drops comprising 5 to 20 helium atoms interacting via a soft two-body gaussian potential. The wave functions of these drops have been obtained in the hyperspherical cluster model (HCM) which provides a correct description of the single-particle behaviour at large separations from the system. The natural orbitals are obtained from diagonalization of the nonlocal one-body density matrix, while Dyson orbitals are constructed by direct overlap of the wave functions of two drops differing by one boson. This overlap converges with increasing basis of the HCM. The shapes and occupancies of the natural orbitals as well as their link to Dyson overlaps and evolution with increasing number of atoms are discussed. Both natural and Dyson orbitals can be used to represent the density of the system. However, the natural orbitals representation is demonstrated to be superior. With increasing boson numbers the difference between Dyson and natural orbitals becomes less prominent and it is expected to disappear in infinitely large systems of identical bosons.

We perform a global analysis of deep-inelastic $e+p$ scattering data from HERA and transverse energy distributions in $p+p$ and $p+\mathrm{Pb}$ collisions, alongside charged hadron multiplicities in $\mathrm{Pb}+\mathrm{Pb}$ 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.

Recently the nucleon-nucleon interaction derived using time-ordered perturbation theory in manifestly Lorentz-invariant chiral effective field theory was shown to yield promising results for peripheral neutron-proton scattering. In this work we study low partial waves at next-to-leading order by treating the potential non-perturbatively in the scattering equation. Reasonable description of the phase shifts in the $S$ and $P$ waves as well as the deuteron properties is observed, which can be regarded as a feasibility study for the application of our formalism to the few- and many-body calculations.

Electromagnetic interactions serve as essential probes for studying and testing our understanding of the atomic nucleus, as they reveal emergent properties across the nuclear chart. We analyse their corresponding observables, which relate to charge and current distributions in nuclei expressed through their multipole components. We focus on theoretical results obtained within nuclear density functional theory (DFT) to derive self-consistent, symmetry-restored nuclear wave functions along with their spectroscopic multipole moments. We demonstrate how these compare with experimental data. We also discuss potential improvements in the formulation of magnetic dipole operators by including two-body meson-exchange contributions. Discussions of exotic symmetry-breaking moments emphasise their importance for understanding fine details of fundamental nuclear interactions. Detailed derivations are provided in the accompanying Supplemental Material.

We study the order-by-order expansion of the energy per particle of asymmetric nuclear matter up to twice saturation density in chiral effective field theory (EFT) within a Bayesian framework. For this, we develop a two-dimensional Gaussian process (2D GP) that is trained using many-body perturbation theory results based on chiral two- and three-nucleon interactions from leading to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^3$LO). This allows for an efficient evaluation of the equation of state (EOS) and thermodynamic derivatives with EFT truncation uncertainties. After benchmarking our 2D GP against Bayesian uncertainties for pure neutron matter and symmetric matter, we study the energy per particle, pressure, and chemical potentials of neutron star matter in $\beta$-equilibrium including EFT uncertainties. We investigate the phase diagram of neutron-rich matter from neutron- to proton-drip and to the uniform phase, including surface and Coulomb corrections. Based on this, we construct EOSs for the inner crust of neutron stars that are consistent with the chiral EFT results for uniform matter at N$^3$LO.

We investigate the $s$-wave $KN$ scattering up to next-to-leading order within a renormalizable framework of covariant chiral effective field theory. Using time-ordered perturbation theory, the scattering amplitude is obtained by treating the leading-order interaction non-perturbatively and including the higher-order corrections perturbatively via the subtractive renormalization. We demonstrate that the non-perturbative treatment is essential, at least at lowest order, in the SU(3) sector of $KN$ scattering. Our NLO study achieves a good description of the empirical $s$-wave phase shifts in the isospin $I=1$ channel. An analysis of the effective range expansion yields a negative effective range, consistent with some partial wave analyses but opposite in sign to earlier phenomenological summaries. For the $I=0$ counterpart, the $KN$ interaction is found to be rather weak and exhibits large uncertainties. Further low-energy $KN$ scattering experiments and lattice QCD simulations are needed to better constrain both $s$-wave channels.

A realistic description of halo nuclei, characterized by low-lying breakup thresholds, requires a proper treatment of continuum effects. We have developed an ab initio approach, the no-core shell model with continuum (NCSMC), capable of describing both bound and unbound states in light nuclei in a unified way. With chiral two- and three-nucleon interactions as the only input, we can predict structure and dynamics of halo and other light nuclei and, by comparing to available experimental data, test the quality of chiral nuclear forces. We review NCSMC calculations of weakly bound states and resonances of exotic halo nuclei $^6$He, $^8$B, $^{11}$Be, and $^{15}$C. For the latter, we discuss its production in the capture reaction $^{14}$C(n,$\gamma$)$^{15}$C. We highlight challenges of a description of $^6$He as a Borromean n-n-$^4$He system. Finally, we present calculations of excited states in $^{10}$Be exhibiting a one-neutron halo structure and a large scale no-core shell model investigation of $^{11}$Li as a precursor of a full n-n-$^9$Li NCSMC study.

We have developed a systematic approach to calculate the correlation function for spin-1/2 particles, incorporating both central and noncentral components of the interparticle interaction. This is achieved by extending the variable phase method to accommodate noncentral potentials and numerically solving the Schrödinger equation. Within this framework, the partial-wave contributions to the nucleon-nucleon correlation functions adopting the Reid soft-core potential are evaluated. The resulting correlation functions are then compared for Gaussian sources of different sizes.

The higher-twist formalism is used at $O(\alpha^2_s)$ to compute all possible medium-induced single-scattering emission kernels for an incoming highly energetic and virtual quark traversing the nuclear environment. The effects of the heavy-quark mass scale are taken into account [Phys. Rev. C 94, 054902 (2016)] both in the initial state as well as in the final state, along with interactions involving both in-medium Glauber gluons and quarks [Nucl. Phys. A 793, 128 (2007)], as well as coherence effects [Phys. Rev. C 105, 024908 (2022)]. As this study is a continuation of our work on medium-induced photon production [Phys. Rev. C 112, 025204 (2025)], the general factorization procedure for $e$-$A$ deep-inelastic scattering is still used. An incoming quark energy loss in the nuclear medium yields four possible scattering kernels $K_i$ with the following final states: (i) $q+g$, (ii) $g+g$, (iii) $q+\bar{q}'$, where the quark $q$ may have a flavor different from the antiquark $\bar{q}'$, and (iv) $q+q'$, where, again, $q$ may have a flavor different from $q'$. The collisional kernels include full phase factors from all non-vanishing diagrams and complete first-order derivative in the longitudinal direction ($k^-$) as well as second-order derivative in the transverse momentum ($k_{\perp}$) gradient expansion. Furthermore, in-medium parton distribution functions and the related jet transport coefficients have a hard transverse-momentum dependence (of the emitted quark or gluon) present within the phase factor.