arXiv subjects

Evgeny Epelbaum

Publications and source records attributed to Evgeny Epelbaum.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Generative artificial intelligence for reconstructing neutron-star matter

Neutron-star cores hold the only known matter in the universe that is simultaneously cold and strongly interacting, compressed beyond nuclear density into a state of unknown composition. The equation of state links stellar masses, radii and tidal deformabilities to this regime, but recovering this key quantity from sparse observations is an ill-posed inverse problem. Existing analyses bury a prior in a fixed functional form, unevenly weighting admissible solutions and biasing the result. We reconstruct the equation of state with a denoising diffusion model that keeps prior, physics and data separate: it learns an inspectable, physically motivated prior anchored to first-principles nuclear theory, while perturbative-QCD and astrophysical constraints are imposed exactly. Future measurements therefore will update the posterior by reweighting alone, without retraining or resampling. The inferred radius of 12.6 km and tidal deformability of 469 at 1.4 solar masses reproduce Gaussian-process and heavy-ion-informed inferences despite a far broader prior. We find near-conformal but still stiff matter in the heaviest stars, consistent with a gradual hadron-quark crossover and disfavouring a strong first-order phase transition. More broadly, coupling a learned prior to exactly enforced physics establishes a template for ill-posed inverse problems where theory and data constrain different regions.

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arXiv2026

Spectroscopic basis for short-range three-nucleon forces

We introduce a spectroscopic basis for the subleading contact three-nucleon forces, which allows one to classify these interactions according to the total angular momentum and parity quantum numbers in a transparent way. Using this new basis, we explore the sensitivity of nucleon-deuteron observables to the three-nucleon short-range interactions. The low dimensionality of the variable-parameter space in the spectroscopic basis allows us to build a simple nucleon-deuteron scattering emulator using radial basis function interpolation. We perform exploratory fits of the subleading contact three-nucleon interactions and demonstrate that 9 of 13 low-energy constants can be reliably determined from elastic nucleon-deuteron scattering data.

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arXiv2026

Can the strong interactions between hadrons be determined using femtoscopy?

In the last decades, femtoscopic measurements from heavy-ion collisions have become a popular tool to investigate the strong interactions between hadrons. The key observables measured in such experiments are the two-hadron momentum correlations, which depend on the production mechanism of hadron pairs and the final-state interactions. Given the complexity of ultra-relativistic collision experiments, the source term describing the production mechanism can only be modeled phenomenologically based on numerous assumptions. The commonly employed approach for analyzing femtoscopic data relies on the Koonin-Pratt formula, which relates the measured correlation functions with the relative wave function of an outgoing hadron pair and a source term that is assumed to be universal. Here, we critically examine this universality assumption and show that for strongly interacting particles such as nucleons, the interpretation of femtoscopic measurements suffers from a potentially large intrinsic uncertainty. We also comment on the ongoing efforts to explore three-body interactions using this experimental technique.

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arXiv2026

Exact emulation of few-body systems at low cost

Effective field theories have established themselves as key pillars of modern nuclear physics. They enable a quantitative understanding of the strong nuclear force, provided low-energy constants that parametrize short-distance physics can be determined from experimental data. This, however, often becomes prohibitively expensive due to a significant computational cost of solving the A-body problem. The computational challenge is particularly severe for three-body forces, which are at the frontier of nuclear and atomic physics and play an important role in the equation of state of neutron stars. Here we prove that for a parametric low-rank update of a Hamiltonian, the A-body problem at a fixed energy exactly reduces to a low-dimensional matrix equation regardless of the size of the Hilbert space. As a proof-of-principle, we present exact and computationally cheap snapshot-based emulators for few-body scattering and bound states. Unlike alternatives, our emulators can be used far away from the snapshot region without loss of precision and yield accurate results for parameter values not accessible using conventional solution techniques. Our approach is not restricted by the interaction type, number of particles, and methods for generating snapshots and can be applied to mitigate the computational burden of the A-body problem to a broad class of problems in nuclear, atomic, and molecular physics.

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arXiv2026

Subleading D-like Three-Nucleon Interactions

We consider subleading contributions to the three-nucleon force from tree-level diagrams involving a single-pion exchange and a contact interaction between two nucleons, which appear at fifth order in the chiral expansion. We show that the corresponding D-like three-nucleon potential depends on 16 low-energy constants, which need to be determined from few-body data. Assuming that their numerical values are governed by the intermediate Δ(1232) excitation mechanism, the considered three-nucleon force can be approximated using 4 low-energy constants that parametrize the short-range nucleon-nucleon to nucleon-Δ transition amplitude.

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arXiv2026

Shallow $T_{bc}$ states from an EFT analysis of $B^{()} \bar D^{()}$ scattering on the lattice

We present an effective field theory (EFT) framework for coupled-channel $B^{(*)}\bar D^{(*)}$ scattering, applying it to recent lattice QCD results by Alexandrou et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 151902 (2024)]. Two complementary EFT approaches are developed: (1) A low-energy theory near the $B \bar D$ ($J=0$) and $B^* \bar D$ ($J=1$) thresholds, where coupled-channel effects are integrated out; (2) A coupled-channel formulation, where all relevant momentum scales are treated as soft, incorporating contact interactions and one-pion exchange (OPE). Importantly, OPE contributes to the lowest channels only through off-diagonal transitions, thus resulting in the appearance of the left-hand cut from two-pion exchange. The two approaches yield mutually consistent results, supporting the existence of shallow bound states in both channels, in agreement with the lattice findings. The finite-volume spectra and extracted pole positions show a near-degeneracy in $J=0$ and $J=1$ channels, consistent with heavy-quark spin symmetry (HQSS). Using HQSS, we predict additional shallow bound states near the $B \bar{D}^*$ and $B^* \bar{D}^*$ thresholds, which are accessible to future lattice simulations. The effect of OPE on the finite volume spectra is found to be small, with only moderate impact on HQSS partners.

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arXiv2026

Ab initio charge form factors and radii of light isoscalar nuclei: Role of the two-body charge density

We make \textit{ab initio} predictions of charge form factors (FFs) and radii for the isoscalar nuclei $^6$Li and $^8$Be using the Jacobi-coordinate No-Core Shell Model. The calculations employ chiral semilocal momentum-space regularized two- and three-nucleon interactions, together with consistently regularized one- and two-nucleon electromagnetic charge operators. With the short-range charge density fixed to the $^4$He charge radius, the predicted FFs and the $^6$Li radius show good agreement with available experimental data. We find that two-nucleon charge density contributions are essential for describing the FFs, particularly at intermediate and large momentum transfers. Although their influence on the charge radii is limited, these contributions remain crucial for attaining accurate predictions. The present results highlight the importance of two-nucleon charge operators in addressing the long-standing underestimation of nuclear charge radii in \textit{ab initio} calculations based on modern chiral interactions.

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arXiv2025

Chiral symmetry and peripheral neutron-$α$ scattering

We propose and demonstrate that peripheral neutron-$α$ scattering at low energies can serve as a sensitive and clean probe of the long-range three-nucleon forces. To this aim, we perform {\it ab initio} quantum Monte Carlo calculations using two- and three-nucleon interactions derived in chiral effective field theory up to third expansion order. We show that the longest-range three-nucleon force stemming from the two-pion exchange plays a crucial role in the proper description of the neutron-$α$ $D$-wave phase shifts. Our Letter reveals the predictive power of chiral symmetry in the few-body sector and opens a new direction for probing and constraining three-nucleon forces.

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arXiv2025

Zemach radii and nuclear structure effects in hyperfine splitting of Lithium

Nuclear structure effects are essential for describing hyperfine splittings from high-precision atomic spectroscopy measurements. These effects are often parametrized by the effective or elastic Zemach radii, with their difference poorly understood. We solve the longstanding discrepancy between the effective and elastic Zemach radii in ${}^6$Li and ${}^7$Li by performing \emph{ab initio} nuclear structure calculations that take into account nuclear polarizability effects. Our results demonstrate that nuclear polarizability effects, negligible in ${}^7$Li, dominate in ${}^6$Li and explain the observed significant deviation between the effective and elastic Zemach radii. Furthermore, we show that the ratios between the nuclear polarizability contributions in different nuclei are universal in the limit of closure and SU(4) symmetry of nuclear forces. In particular, the nuclear polarizability contribution in an odd-odd nucleus is enhanced by a factor of $μ_p/(μ_p+μ_n)\simeq 3$, with $μ_{n,p}$ denoting the nucleon magnetic moments, compared to its odd-$A$ isotopes. The same mechanism also explains the Zemach radius deviations observed in ${}^2$H and ${}^3$He. These findings establish nuclear polarizability as the dominant source of isotope-dependent nuclear corrections to hyperfine splitting in light atoms.

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arXiv2025

Chiral $3π$-exchange potential using the method of unitary transformation

Nuclear potentials are known to exhibit a considerable degree of scheme dependence. For one- and two-pion exchange nucleon-nucleon (NN) potentials, unitary ambiguities start showing up at the level of the leading relativistic corrections to the dominant static contributions. However, for the three-pion exchange potential, scheme-dependent contributions are expected to appear already at the static level. Here, we analyze the leading and subleading chiral $3π$-exchange NN potentials using the method of unitary transformation. In line with the expectations, our results for selected classes of contributions differ from those obtained by Kaiser using S-matrix matching. We present analytical expressions for the $3π$-exchange potential, which are off-shell consistent with the interactions used by the Bochum group, and discuss the numerical importance of the observed differences.

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arXiv2025

Left-hand cut problem in lattice QCD and an EFT-based solution

Lattice QCD has become an essential tool for studying the hadron-hadron interaction from the first principles. However, when extracting infinite-volume scattering parameters from finite-volume energy levels, the traditional Lüscher formula encounters limitations due to the left-hand cut induced by long-range interactions such as the one-pion exchange. In this work, we propose an alternative approach based on chiral effective field theory combined with a Hamiltonian method in the plane wave basis. By solving a Schrödinger-like equation in the finite volume, our method connects the finite-volume energy spectrum with infinite-volume observables, while systematically incorporating the long-range physics and solving the left-hand cut problem. The use of the plane wave basis mitigates issues related to partial wave mixing. Our numerical results for $DD^*$ scattering at $m_π\approx$ 280 MeV demonstrate that this approach overcomes the limitations of the Lüscher method and points towards a resonance interpretation of the $T_{cc}(3875)$ state, as opposed to the virtual state predicted by traditional analyses.

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arXiv2025

Doubly charm tetraquark channel with isospin $1$ from lattice QCD

Experimentally, the doubly charm tetraquark channel $cc\bar q\bar q$ with $q\!=\!u,d$ features an exotic hadron, $T_{cc}$, with isospin $I\!=\!0$ near the $DD^*$ threshold, while no peak was observed for $I\!=\!1$. We present a lattice QCD study of this channel with $I\!=\!1$, $J^P\!=\!1^+$ and $m_π\simeq 280~$MeV. Finite-volume energies calculated across five charm quark masses consistently feature a positive energy shift with respect to non-interacting energies, indicating repulsive interaction at energies near threshold. These energies are used to compute the $DD^*$ scattering amplitude using both the standard Lüscher method and the recently proposed effective-field-theory-based approach in the plane-wave basis, which incorporates the long-range interactions and the left-hand cut. Both analyses render a small negative scattering length and the scattering amplitude that does not feature any poles in the energy region near the $DD^*$ threshold, in line with LHCb results. We identify that the Wick contraction resembling $t$-channel isovector-vector meson exchanges between $D$ and $D^*$ plays a key role in distinguishing between the $I=0$ and $I=1$ channels, leading to repulsion in the $I=1$ and attraction in the $I=0$ channel.

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arXiv2025

Three-body forces and Efimov physics in nuclei and atoms

This review article presents historical developments and recent advances in our understanding on the three-body forces and Efimov physics, from an interdisciplinary viewpoint encompassing nuclear physics and cold atoms. Theoretical attempts to elucidate the three-body force with the chiral effective field theory are explained, followed by an overview of experiments aimed at observing signatures of the nuclear three-body force. Some recent experimental and theoretical works in the field of cold atoms devoted to measuring and engineering three-body forces among atoms are also presented. As a phenomenon arising from the three-body effect, Efimov physics in both cold atoms and nuclear systems is reviewed.

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arXiv2025

Internal structure of the $T_{cc}(3875)^+$ from its light-quark mass dependence

We employ a chiral effective field theory-based approach to connect $DD^*$ scattering observables at the physical and variable pion masses accessible in lattice QCD simulations. We incorporate all relevant scales associated with three-body $DDπ$ dynamics and the left-hand cut induced by the one-pion exchange for pion masses higher than the physical one, as required by analyticity and unitarity. By adjusting the contact interactions to match experimental data at the physical pion mass and lattice finite-volume energy levels at $m_π = 280$ MeV, we predict the trajectory of the $T_{cc}$ pole as a function of the pion mass, finding it consistent with the hadronic-molecule scenario. In particular, we find that the explicit treatment of the one-pion exchange has a pronounced effect on the pole trajectory for $m_π\gtrsim 230$ MeV by pushing it into the complex energy plane.

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arXiv2024

Non-perturbative three-nucleon simulation using chiral lattice EFT

We study the three-nucleon system at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order ($\mathrm{N^3LO}$) in the framework of chiral effective field theory (EFT) on the lattice. Our calculations do not rely on a perturbative treatment of subleading contributions to the nuclear forces. For the two-nucleon potential, we apply the previously developed $\mathrm{N^3LO}$ lattice interaction. For the leading contribution to the three-nucleon force, we determine the two low-energy constants (LECs) in the contact interactions by adjusting the ground state energy and half-life of triton, where the latter employs the nuclear axial current at $\mathrm{N^2LO}$ in chiral EFT. Additionally, the ground state energy of helion and the charge radii of the two considered nuclei are computed. No effect of the smearing regularization in the three-nucleon contact interaction is observed here. We compare our results with recent lattice-EFT calculations that are based on a potential tuned to light and medium-mass nuclei using the wave-function-matching technique to circumvent the Monte-Carlo sign problem.

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arXiv2024

Parity and time-reversal violating nuclear forces with explicit $Δ$-excitations

We emphasize the usefulness of treating delta resonances as explicit degrees of freedom in applications of chiral effective field theory (EFT) to parity-violating and time-reversal-violating (PVTV) nuclear interactions. Compared with the delta-less framework, the explicit inclusion of the delta isobar allows one to resum certain types of contributions to the PVTV two-pion exchange two- and three-nucleon potentials without at the same time introducing any unknown parameters up to next-to-next-to-leading order in the EFT expansion. We provide the corresponding expressions for the delta contributions in momentum and coordinate spaces and compare the convergence of the EFT expansion in both formulations.

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arXiv2024

Wavefunction matching for solving quantum many-body problems

Ab initio calculations play an essential role in our fundamental understanding of quantum many-body systems across many subfields, from strongly correlated fermions to quantum chemistry and from atomic and molecular systems to nuclear physics. One of the primary challenges is to perform accurate calculations for systems where the interactions may be complicated and difficult for the chosen computational method to handle. Here we address the problem by introducing a new approach called wavefunction matching. Wavefunction matching transforms the interaction between particles so that the wavefunctions up to some finite range match that of an easily computable interaction. This allows for calculations of systems that would otherwise be impossible due to problems such as Monte Carlo sign cancellations. We apply the method to lattice Monte Carlo simulations of light nuclei, medium-mass nuclei, neutron matter, and nuclear matter. We use high-fidelity chiral effective field theory interactions and find good agreement with empirical data. These results are accompanied by new insights on the nuclear interactions that may help to resolve long-standing challenges in accurately reproducing nuclear binding energies, charge radii, and nuclear matter saturation in ab initio calculations.

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arXiv2024

Solving the left-hand cut problem in lattice QCD: $T_{cc}(3875)^+$ from finite volume energy levels

We discuss a novel effective-field-theory-based approach for extracting two-body scattering information from finite volume energies, serving as an alternative to Lüscher's method. By explicitly incorporating one-pion exchange, we overcome the challenging left-hand cut problem in Lüscher's method and can handle finite volume energy levels both below and above the left-hand cut. Applied to the lattice data for $DD^*$ scattering at a pion mass of 280 MeV, as an illustrative example, our results reveal the significant impact of the one-pion exchange on P-wave and S-wave phase shifts. The pole position of the $T_{cc}(3875)^+$ state, extracted from the finite-volume energy levels at this pion mass while taking into account left-hand cut effects, range corrections and partial-wave mixing, is consistent with a near-threshold resonance. This study demonstrates, for the first time, that two-body scattering information can be reliably extracted from lattice spectra including the left-hand cut.

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