Cross-Environment Diagnostics for New Physics in Proton-Proton and Heavy-Ion Collisions

Abstract

Proton-proton and heavy-ion measurements are usually interpreted within separate theoretical and experimental frameworks, even when the same reconstructed final state is measured and the $pp$ result provides or constrains the elementary reference for nuclear observables. This separation creates a potential blind spot: an omitted contribution can be absorbed into production or signal-model parameters in $pp$ collisions and then be reinterpreted through independent nuclear-medium parameters in heavy-ion collisions. We propose cross-environment closure as a complementary search principle. Conventional parameters remain specific to each collision system, while one candidate new-physics contribution must remain coherent across systems and observables. Quarkonium is used as a controlled illustration rather than as the definition of the method. A near-degenerate dimuon component is shown to be absorbable into a retuned $pp$ spectrum and a single-peak mass fit, while the same $p_T$-dependent contribution propagates into representative $R_{pA}$, $R_{AA}$, and $v_2$ relations. These quantities are consistency observables, not assumed new-physics baselines. The numerical examples are stress tests, not claims about an allowed particle or an anomaly in current data. The main result is a transferable diagnostic principle, illustrated here with quarkonium rather than formulated as a universal statistical framework.