EMMI Workshop: Light-ion collisions 2026

The ab initio approach in nuclear theory aims to describe nuclei at the finest possible resolution scale while maximizing predictive power, with chiral effective field theory promising a systematic link to low-energy QCD. The predictive power of chiral Hamiltonians depends on the information content of the data entering the calibration of the low-energy constants. High-energy collisions of...

I give some perspectives on how one can (more) directly constrain coefficients in low-energies of effective theories of QCD from ultrarelativistic collisions of 16O and 20Ne nuclei at the LHC. Using Lattice Effective Field Theory techniques it is possible to generate discrete nuclear configurations, and it has been shown that by using a reweighting method, a single set of configurations can...

Understanding nuclear structure from fundamental interactions is a foundational task. We present ab initio Nuclear Lattice Effective Field Theory studies of Beryllium isotopes and Carbon-12, with low-lying spectra, radii, and electromagnetic properties in good agreement with data. Alpha-cluster intrinsic densities reveal two-center cluster structures, a one-neutron halo, and molecular dynamics...

The isobar collisions realized at RHIC provide a unique opportunity to probe nuclear structure effects in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. In this work, we use the STAR isobar data to perform a Bayesian calibration including nuclear structure parameters. The nuclear densities are described by deformed Woods-Saxon distributions, supplemented by a step-like two-nucleon correlation function...