Diffusion Monte Carlo study of deuteron-like fully light hexaquarks

Abstract

We perform a Diffusion Monte Carlo study of fully light hexaquarks containing three $u$ quarks and three $d$ quarks within a constituent-quark model. Both compact and baryon--baryon-like arrangements were considered separately. All compact hexaquark configurations are found well above their corresponding baryon--baryon thresholds, suggesting that deeply bound compact six-quark states are not favored in the light-quark sector within this model. By contrast, several dibaryon-like configurations lie close, but above, to the $NN$, $N\Delta$, and $\Delta\Delta$ thresholds and show spatial structures compatible with molecular states. One configuration exhibits two well-defined nucleon-like subclusters separated by several femtometers, characteristic of deuteron-like spatial clustering, although its calculated energy remains slightly above the corresponding threshold.