The production mechanism of light nuclei, such as deuteron, helium-3, tritium and their antiparticles, has recently attracted an increased attention from the astroparticle and heavy ion communities. The expected low astrophysical background of light antinulei makes them ideal probes for exotic astrophysical processes, such as dark matter annihilations. At the same time, they can be used to measure two-nucleon correlations and density fluctuations in heavy ion collisions, which may shed light on the QCD phase diagram. Motivated by the importance of light antinuclei in cosmic ray studies, we developed a new coalescence model for light (anti)nuclei that includes both the size of the formation region, which is process dependent, and momentum correlations in a semi-classical picture. We have employed the model as an afterburner to the event generators Pythia 8 and QGSJET II, and find that the model agrees well with experimental data on antideuteron and antihelium-3 production in $e^+e^-$, $pp$, $p$Be and $p$Al collisions at various energies. In this paper, we review this model and update existing fits to experimental data based on new insights.
We present, using the statistical model, an analysis of the production of light nuclei, hypernuclei and their antiparticles in central collisions of heavy nuclei. Based on these studies we provide predictions for the production yields of multiply-strange light nuclei.
We present the scaling properties of mass number of light (anti)nuclei production in midrapidity Au + Au collisions at $\sqrt {s_{NN}}=200$ GeV based on the PACIAE + DCPC model. It is found that the integrated yield of light (anti)nuclei decreased exponentially with the increase of mass numbers which depends on the centrality, this properties of the system can be described quantitatively by temperature $T$ at hadronic freeze-out, and the model results are consistent with STAR data. Furthermore, we found that the integrated yield of heavier (anti)nuclei per participant nucleon increases from pe…
We investigate the properties of light (anti)nuclei and (anti)hypertriton production in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}=2.76$ TeV, based on the parton and hadron cascade and dynamically constrained phase-space coalescence (PACIAE + DCPC) model. We found that the yields of light (anti)nuclei and (anti)hypertriton strongly depend on the centrality, i.e., their yields decrease rapidly with the increase of centrality bins, but their yield ratios are independent of centrality. The results of theoretical model are well consistent with ALICE data. Furthermore, we found that the integrated yie…
The energy dependence of light (anti)nuclei and (anti)hypertriton production are investigated in central Au-Au collisions from AGS up to LHC energies at midrapidity, using the parton and hadron cascade model (PACIAE) together with the dynamically constrained phase-space coalescence model(DCPC). We find that the yields, yield ratios of the antiparticles to their corresponding particles, the coalescence parameters $B_A$ and the strangeness population factor $s_3$ of light (anti)nuclei and (anti)hypertriton strongly depend on the energy. Furthermore, we analyze and discuss the strangeness populat…
Production of light (anti-)nuclei and (anti-)hypertriton within midrapidity ($|y|<0.5$) and $p_T<3.0$ GeV/c in $pp$ interactions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 0.90, 2.76 and 7 TeV is investigated by the dynamically constrained phase space coalescence model (DCPC), combined with {\footnotesize{PACIAE}} model. The ALICE data for yields, ratios, as well as transverse momentum distributions of $\overline{d}$ and $d$ are well reproduced by the model simulations, meanwhile the three basic characters of $\rm^3{\overline{He}}$, $\rm^3{He}$, $\rm{{^3_{\overline Λ}\overline H}}$, and $\rm{^3_ΛH}$ are also predicted. …
Momentum correlation functions of light (anti)nuclei formed by the coalescence mechanism of (anti)nucleons are calculated for several central heavy-ion collision systems, namely $_{5}^{10}\textrm{B}+_{5}^{10}\textrm{B}$, $_{8}^{16}\textrm{O}+_{8}^{16}\textrm{O}$, $_{20}^{40}\textrm{Ca}+_{20}^{40}\textrm{Ca}$ as well as $_{79}^{197}\textrm{Au}+_{79}^{197}\textrm{Au}$ in different centralities at center of mass energy $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 39 GeV within the framework of A Multi-Phase Transport (AMPT) model complemented by the Lednick$\acute{y}$ and Lyuboshitz analytical method. Momentum correlation …
The thermal description of light nuclei at the chemical freeze-out has been investigated. First, I have verified the equilibration of the light nuclei and then introduced a new method to investigate the light nuclei formation. One can study the proximity between the phase space density of light nuclei ratios and their hadronic constituents e.g $\bar{d}/d$ and $(\bar{p}\bar{n}/pn)$. I have found that with the exclusion of the decay feed-down from the hadronic yields in the thermal model, the hadronic representations have good agreement with the light nuclei ratios. I have performed a similar an…
With the kinetic freeze-out nucleons and antinucleons obtained from the quark combination model, we study the production of light nuclei and antinuclei in the (anti-)nucleon coalescence mechanism in relativistic heavy ion collisions. We derive analytic formulas of the momentum distributions of different light nuclei and apply them to compute transverse momentum ($p_T$) spectra of (anti-)deuterons ($d$, $\bar d$) and (anti-)tritons ($t$, $\bar t$) in Au-Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 54.4 GeV. We find that the experimental data available for these $p_T$ spectra can be…
We present the production of light (anti)nuclei, (anti)hypertriton and di-Lambda based on coalescence model in central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200GeV$. The invariant yields of \He(\Hebar), \hypert(\hypertbar), \Hee(\Heebar) obtained is found to be consistent with the STAR measurements. The $p_{T}$ integrated yields for di-Lambda $dN_{ΛΛ}/dy \sim 2.23\times10^{-5}$, and is not strongly dependent on the parameter employed for coalescence process. Relative particle ratios of light anti(nuclei) and (anti)hypertriton are explored, and agree with experimental data and thermal model predic…
We calculate formation spectra of eta-nucleus systems in (pi,N) reactions with nuclear targets, which can be performed at existing and/or forthcoming facilities, including J-PARC, in order to investigate eta-nucleus interactions. Based on the N^*(1535) dominance in the eta N system, eta-mesic nuclei are suitable systems for study of in-medium properties of the N^*(1535) baryon resonance, such as reduction of the mass difference of N and N^* in nuclear medium, which affects level structure of the eta and N^*-hole modes. We find that clear information on the in-medium N^*- and eta-nucleus intera…
The binding system of a hadron and a nucleus is a topic of great interest for investigating the hadron properties. In the heavy-flavor region, the attraction between a $P(=\bar{D},B)$ meson and a nucleon $N$ can appear, where the $PN-P^\ast N$ mixing plays an important role in relation to the heavy-quark spin symmetry. The attraction can produce exotic heavy mesic nuclei that are stable against the strong decay. We study an exotic system where the $\bar{D}$ ($B$) meson and nucleus are bound. The meson-nucleus interaction is given by a folding potential with single-channel $PN$ interaction and …
The production of light (anti-)nuclei and (anti-)hypertriton in a recent collsion system size scan program proposed for the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is investigated by using the dynamically constrained phase-space coalescence model and the parton and hadron cascade model. The collision system dependence of yield ratios for deuteron to proton, helium-3 to proton, and hypertriton to $Λ$-hyperon with the corresponding values for antiparticles is predicted. The work presents that for the yield ratios a significant difference exists between (hyper)nuclei and the…
The nuclear modification factors ($R_{AA}$) of $π^{\pm}, p(\bar p)$, and $d(\bar d)$ with $|y|<0.5, p_T<20.0$~GeV/c in peripheral (40-60\%) and central (0-5\%) Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt {s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV have been studied using the parton and hadron cascade ({\footnotesize PACIAE}) model plus the dynamically constrained phase space coalescence ({\footnotesize DCPC}) model. It is found that the $R_{AA}$ of light (anti)nuclei ($d, \bar d$) is similar to that of hadrons ($π^\pm, p, \bar p$), and the $R_{AA}$ of antiparticles is the same as that of particles. The suppression of $R_{AA}$ at high-…
From the analysis of light (anti)nuclei multiplicities that were measured recently by the ALICE collaboration in Pb+Pb collisions at the center-of-mass collision energy $\sqrt{s_{NN}} =2.76$ TeV there arose a highly non-trivial question about the excluded volume of composite particles. Surprisingly, the hadron resonance gas model (HRGM) is able to perfectly describe the light (anti)nuclei multiplicities under various assumptions. Thus, one can consider the (anti)nuclei with a vanishing hard-core radius (as the point-like particles) or with the hard-core radius of proton, but the fit quality is…
We investigate hadron formation in deep inelastic lepton scattering on N, Kr and Xe nuclei in the kinematic regime of the HERMES experiment. The elementary electron-nucleon interaction is described within the event generator PYTHIA while a full coupled-channel treatment of the final state interactions is included by means of a BUU transport model. We find a good agreement with the measured charged hadron multiplicity ratio $R_M^h$ for N and Kr targets by accounting for the deceleration and absorption of the primarily produced particles as well as for the creation of secondary hadrons in the fi…
We calculate theoretically the formation spectra of eta'(958)-nucleus systems in the (p,d) reaction for the investigation of the in-medium modification of the eta' mass. We show the comprehensive numerical calculations based on a simple form of the eta' optical potential in nuclei with various potential depths. We conclude that one finds an evidence of possible attractive interaction between eta' and nucleus as peak structure appearing around the eta' threshold in light nuclei such as 11C when the attractive potential is stronger than 100 MeV and the absorption width is of order of 40 MeV or l…
We propose to use the recoilless (d,$^3$He) reaction to produce $η$-mesic nuclei. This reaction has been used to observe deeply bound pionic states and proven to be powerful recently. We calculate $η$-mesic bound states in the nucleus using an optical potential and their formation cross section with the Green function method. Then, we carefully check the experimental feasibility. We find that $η$-mesic nuclei can be observed experimentally using the (d,$^3$He) reaction. We also mention the possibility to study the formation of $ω$-mesic nuclei.
A novel nuclear effect on the flavour asymmetry of anti-quarks in the nucleon bound in a nucleus is discussed in terms of the meson cloud model and the Pauli exclusion principle. It is expected that the flavour asymmetry is enhanced in a nucleus.
For detailed explanation of the experimental results of lepton production cross section in hadronic collisions such as nucleon-nucleon or nucleon-nuclei, it is of great importance to use quarks and sea quarks distribution function inside free and bound nucleons. In this paper the role of pion cloud inside the nucleus in the structure function of Cu and Pt nuclei and the EMC ratio of these nuclei were investigated by using harmonic oscillator model.
Kinetic temperature and radial flow velocity estimation using identified hadrons and light (anti-)nuclei produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC
We have used the dynamically constrained phase space coalescence model to investigate the production of light nuclei (anti-nuclei) based on the 1.134$\times 10^7$ hadronic final states generated by the PACIAE model for the 0-5% most central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}$=200 GeV with $|y| <$1 and $p_T<$5 acceptances. The STAR data of $\bar{_{\barΛ}^ 3H}$, ${_Λ^3 H}$, $^3{\bar{He}}$, and $^3{He}$ yields and ratios are well reproduced by the corresponding PACIAE results. The transverse momentum distribution of $\bar{^3{He}}$ (${^3{He}}$) and $\bar{_{\barΛ}^3H}$ (${_Λ^3H}$) is also give…
Creations of light anti-nuclei (anti-deuterium, anti-tritium, anti-He3 and anti-He4) are observed by collaborations at the LHC and RHIC accelerators. Some cosmic ray experiments are aimed to find the anti-nuclei in cosmic rays. To support the experimental studies of the anti-nuclei a Monte Carlo simulation of anti-nuclei interactions with matter is implemented in the Geant4 toolkit. The implementation combines practically all known theoretical approaches to the problem of antinucleon-nucleon interactions.
We study theoretically the kaonic atom and kaonic nucleus formations in the in--flight ($K^-,p$) reactions using the Green function method, which is suited to evaluate formation rates both of stable and unstable bound systems. We consider $^{12}$C and $^{16}$O as the targets and calculate the spectra of the ($K^-,p$) reactions. We conclude that a no peak structure due to kaonic nucleus formation is expected in the reaction spectra calculated with the chiral unitary kaon--nucleus optical potential. In the spectra with the phenomenological deep kaon--nucleus potential, we may have possibilities …
We present a detailed comparison of coalescence and thermal-statistical models for the production of (anti-)(hyper-)nuclei in high-energy collisions. For the first time, such a study is carried out as a function of the size of the object relative to the size of the particle emitting source. Our study reveals large differences between the two scenarios for the production of objects with extended wave-functions. While both models give similar predictions and show similar agreement with experimental data for (anti-)deuterons and (anti-)3He nuclei, they largely differ in their description of (anti…
The multiplicities of light (anti)nuclei were measured recently by the ALICE collaboration in Pb+Pb collisions at the center-of-mass collision energy $\sqrt{s_{NN}} =2.76$ TeV. Surprisingly, the hadron resonance gas model is able to perfectly describe their multiplicities under various assumptions. For instance, one can consider the (anti)nuclei with a vanishing hard-core radius (as the point-like particles) or with the hard-core radius of proton, but the fit quality is the same for these assumptions. In this paper we assume the hard-core radius of nuclei consisting of $A$ baryons or antibaryo…
A dynamically constrained coalescence model based on the phase space quantization and classical limit method was proposed to investigate the production of light nuclei (anti-nuclei) in non-single diffractive (NSD) pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=7 and 14 TeV. This calculation was based on the final hadronic state in the PYTHIA and PACIAE model simulations, the event sample consisted of 1.2$\times 10^8$ events in both simulations. The PACIAE model calculated $\bar D$ yield of 6.247$\times 10^{-5}$ in NSD pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=7 TeV is well comparing with the ALICE rough datum of 5.456$\times …
The nuclear effects in J/psi hadro- and electroproduction on nuclei are considered in framework of reggeon approach. It is shown that screening regime which holds for electroproduction at x_F > 0.7 and for hadroproduction at x_F > -(0.3-0.4) is changed with anti-screening regime for smaller x_F values.
The transverse momentum spectra of light nuclei (deuteron, triton and helion) produced in various centrality intervals in Gold-Gold (Au-Au), Lead-Lead (Pb-Pb) and proton-Lead (p-Pb) collisions, as well as in inelastic (INEL) proton-proton (pp) collisions are analyzed by the blast wave model with Boltzmann Gibbs statistics. The model results are nearly in agreement with the experimental data measured by STAR and ALICE Collaborations in special transverse momentum ranges. We extracted the bulk properties in terms of kinetic freezeout temperature, transverse flow velocity and freezeout volume. It…
Antimatter nuclei in cosmic rays (CRs) are a promising tool for the indirect detection of dark-matter annihilation signatures. However, the search of new-physics signals in CRs relies on our knowledge of the astrophysical antimatter background which, in turns, depends critically on the several fragmentation cross-sections that regulate production and destruction of antiparticles in the interstellar medium. In this work, we have re-evaluated the astrophysical background of CR antiproton, antineutron, and antihelium nuclei in Galactic CRs using improved calculations. The production cross-section…
We consider the possibility of detecting relic anti-neutrinos by their resonant absorption in a nucleus, which can undergo electron capture. This possibility appears quite realistic in view of recent developments in Penning Trap Mass Spectrometry and cryogenic micro-calorimetry.
We discuss the possibility to produce the bound states of the $η'(958)$ meson in nuclei theoretically. We calculate the formation cross sections of the $η'$ bound states with the Green function method for ($γ$,p) reaction and discuss the experimental feasibility at photon facilities like SPring-8. We conclude that we can expect to observe resonance peaks in ($γ$,p) spectra for the formation of $η'$ bound states and we can deduce new information on $η'$ properties at finite density. These observations are believed to be essential to know the possible mass shift of $η'$ and deduce new informatio…
We study the strangeness production in antiproton-nucleus collisions at the beam momenta from 200 MeV/c to 15 GeV/c within the Giessen Botzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (GiBUU) transport model. The GiBUU model contains a very detailed description of the underlying antinucleon-nucleon cross sections, in-particular, of the strangeness production channels. We compare our calculations with the bubble chamber data on Λ- and K^0_S-production in antiproton-nucleus collisions and with the earlier intranuclear cascade calculations. The contributions of the various partial channels to the hyperon production ar…
The production of light anti- and hyper-nuclei provides unique observables to characterise the system created in high energy proton-proton (pp), proton-nucleus (pA) and nucleus-nucleus (AA) collisions. In particular, nuclei and hyper-nuclei are special objects with respect to non-composite hadrons (such as pions, kaons, protons, etc.), because their size is comparable to a fraction or the whole system created in the collision. Their formation is typically described within the framework of coalescence and thermal-statistical production models. In order to distinguish between the two production …
A possibility of a verification of CPT-invariance of QED for bound states by example of muonium or antimuonium produced in reactions of scattering of electrons or positrons by nuclei is considered. The number of events of the muonium production is estimated for contemporary accelerators. The method of the detection of muonium by measuring of oscillations of the decay curve caused by the interference between the ground and excited state of muonium is suggested. The admixture of the excited muonium to the final state is calculated.
With the aim of achieving a better and more complete understanding of neutrino interactions with nuclear targets, the coherent production of charged kaons induced by neutrinos and antineutrinos is investigated in the energy range of some of the current neutrino experiments. We follow a microscopic approach which, at the nucleon level, incorporates the most important mechanisms allowed by the chiral symmetry breaking pattern of QCD. The distortion of the outgoing (anti)kaon is taken into account by solving the Klein-Gordon equation with realistic optical potentials. Angular and momentum distrib…
A new parameterization of the antiproton inclusive production cross section in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions is proposed. A sample of consistent pA->pbar X$ experimental data sets measured on 1<A<208 nuclei, from 12 GeV up to 400 GeV incident energy, have been used to constrain the parameters. A broader energy domain is covered for the pp->pbar X reaction with a simplified functional form used in the fits. The agreement obtained with the data is good. The results are discussed.
Cosmic-ray (CR) anti-nuclei are often considered as important observables for dark matter (DM) indirect detections at low kinetic energies below GeV per nucleon. Since the primary CR fluxes drop quickly towards high energies, the secondary anti-nuclei in CR are expected to be significantly suppressed in high energy regions ($\gtrsim 100$ GeV per nucleon). If DM particles are heavy, the annihilation productions of DM can be highly boosted, thus the fluxes of anti-nuclei produced by DM annihilations may exceed the secondary background at high energies, which opens a high energy window for DM ind…
In the study of neutrino and antineutrino interactions in the GeV regime, kinematic imbalances of the final-state particles have sensitivities to different nuclear effects. Previous ideas based on neutrino quasielastic interactions [Phys. Rev. C94, 015503 (2016), Phys. Rev. C95, 065501 (2017)] are now generalized to antineutrino quasielastic interactions, as well as neutrino and antineutrino pion productions. Measurements of these generalized final-state correlations could provide unique and direct constraints on the nuclear response inherently different for neutrinos and antineutrinos, and th…
A Dual Parton Model with a formation zone intranuclear cascade in the spectators of the projectile and target nuclei is studied. The hadrons produced in the formation zone cascade contribute to Feynman-$x_F$ and lab-$x$ distributions in the fragmentation regions of the target and projectile nuclei. We discuss the consequences of this model in the secondary cosmic ray production, by analyzing the calculated spectrum weighted moments for pion and kaon production. We show that the proposed model leads to significant differences with respect to a simple superposition model, where the nucleus-nucle…
We study the production of charmed baryons in the antiproton-proton and antiproton-nucleus interactions within a fully covariant model that is based on an effective Lagrangian approach. The baryon production proceeds via the $t$-channel $D^0$ and $D^{*0}$ meson-exchange diagrams. We have also explored the production of the charm-baryon hypernucleus $^{16}_{Λ_c^+}$O in the antiproton - $^{16}$O collisions. For antiproton beam momenta of interest to the ${\bar P}ANDA$ experiment, the 0$^\circ$ differential cross sections for the formation of $^{16}_{Λ_c^+}$O hypernuclear states with simple parti…
We present a theoretical study on formation rates of ηand ωmeson-nucleus systems induced by (γ,p) reactions on nuclear targets at ideal recoilless condition. We find that the smaller distortion effect in the (γ,p) reaction enables us to investigate properties of the mesons created deeply inside nucleus more clearly. We also consider excitation of scalar-isoscalar (σ) mode in nucleus in order to investigate spectral enhancement around two-pion threshold caused by partial restoration of chiral symmetry. We conclude that valuable information of meson-nucleus interactions can be extracted from glo…
The Galactic secondary cosmic ray anti-proton flux calculated with different propagation models is fairly consistent with data, and the associated propagation uncertainty is small. This is not the case for any anti-proton exotic component of the dark matter halo. Detailed propagation models are mandatory if the ultimate goal is to explain an excess. However, simpler and faster approximate formulae for anti-protons are an attractive alternative to quickly check that a given dark matter model is not inconsistent with the anti-proton observed flux. This paper provides such formulae. In addition, …
Recent studies of the cosmic-ray antiproton-to-proton ratio have identified an excess of $\sim$10-20 GeV antiprotons relative to the predictions of standard astrophysical models. Intriguingly, the properties of this excess are consistent with the same range of dark matter models that can account for the long-standing excess of $γ$-rays observed from the Galactic Center. Such dark matter candidates can also produce significant fluxes of anti-deuterium and anti-helium nuclei. Here we study the production and transport of such particles, both from astrophysical processes as well as from dark matt…
A new mechanism describing the formation of protogalaxies is proposed, which is based on the second- order phase transition in the inflation stage and the domain wall formation upon the end of inflation. The presence of closed domain walls with the size markedly exceeding the cosmological horizon at the instant of their formation and the wall collapse in the postinflation epoch (when the wall size becomes comparable with the cosmological horizon), which leads to the formation of massive black hole clusters that can serve as nuclei for the future galaxies. The black hole mass distributions obta…
