Deciphering Hypertriton and Antihypertriton Spins from Their Global Polarizations in Heavy-Ion Collisions

2024/05/20 by Kai-Jia Sun, Sun, Kai-Jia, Dai-Neng Liu +9 · 4 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Chemistry · #FOS: Physical sciences #Hemoglobin structure and function #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Mass Spectrometry Techniques and Applications #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Protein Interaction Studies and Fluorescence Analysis

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2405.12015

openalex publication_date 2024/05/20 · openalex created_date 2024/05/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Understanding the properties of hypernuclei is crucial for constraining the nature of hyperon-nucleon (Y-N) interactions, which plays a key role in determining the inner structure of compact stars. The lightest hypernuclei and antihypernuclei are the hypertriton (³_ΛH), which consists of a pair of nucleons and a Λ hyperon, and its antinucleus (³_Λ\rm H). Significant knowledge has recently been acquired regarding the mass, lifetime, and binding energy of ³_ΛH. However, its exact spin, whether (1)/(2) or (3)/(2), remains undetermined in both experimental and theoretical studies. Here, we present a novel method of using the hypertriton global polarization in heavy-ion collisions to decipher not only its total spin but also its internal spin structure. This method is based on the finding that its three different spin structures exhibit distinct beam energy dependence of its global polarization when it is produced in these collisions from the coalescence of proton, neutron and Λ. Future observations of the hypertriton and antihypertriton global polarizations thus provide the opportunity to unveil the spin structures of hypertriton and antihypertriton and their production mechanisms in heavy-ion collisions.

Cited by

• A novel design of general-purpose spectrometer with nucleon polarimeter function
• A Review on Intense Electromagnetic Fields in Heavy-Ion Collisions: Theoretical Predictions and Experimental Results
• Machine learning the single-Λ hypernuclei with neural-network quantum states
• Spin polarization from nucleon-nucleon scatterings in intermediate-energy heavy-ion collisions

Related

• From Hyperons to Hypernuclei: A New Route to Unravel Proton Spin Polarization
• Softening of the Hypertriton Transverse Momentum Spectrum in Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Dual-polarization structure and nuclear structure effect on Λ polarization
• Global polarization and spin alignment in heavy-ion collisions: past, present and future
• Binding energy of ³_Λ\rmH and ⁴_Λ\rmH via image analyses of nuclear emulsions using deep-learning