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Romero-López, Fernando (ORCID:0000000302391394)

Publications and source records attributed to Romero-López, Fernando (ORCID:0000000302391394).

QCD Constraints on Isospin-Dense Matter and the Nuclear Equation of State

Understanding the behavior of dense hadronic matter is a central goal in nuclear physics as it governs the nature and dynamics of astrophysical objects such as supernovae and neutron stars. Because of the nonperturbative nature of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), little is known rigorously about hadronic matter in these extreme conditions. Here, lattice QCD calculations are used to compute thermodynamic quantities and the equation of state of QCD over a wide range of isospin chemical potentials with controlled systematic uncertainties. Agreement is seen with chiral perturbation theory when the chemical potential is small. Comparison to perturbative QCD at large chemical potential allows for an estimate of the gap in the superconducting phase, and this quantity is seen to agree with perturbative determinations. Since the partition function for an isospin chemical potential μ I bounds the partition function for a baryon chemical potential μ B = 3 μ I / 2 , these calculations also provide rigorous nonperturbative QCD bounds on the symmetric nuclear matter equation of state over a wide range of baryon densities for the first time. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Applications of flow models to the generation of correlated lattice QCD ensembles

Machine-learned normalizing flows can be used in the context of lattice quantum field theory to generate statistically correlated ensembles of lattice gauge fields at different action parameters. This work demonstrates how these correlations can be exploited for variance reduction in the computation of observables. Three different proof-of-concept applications are demonstrated using a novel residual flow architecture: continuum limits of gauge theories, the mass dependence of QCD observables, and hadronic matrix elements based on the Feynman–Hellmann approach. In all three cases, it is shown that statistical uncertainties are significantly reduced when machine-learned flows are incorporated as compared with the same calculations performed with uncorrelated ensembles or direct reweighting. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Two-Pole Nature of the Λ ( 1405 ) Resonance from Lattice QCD

This Letter presents the first lattice QCD computation of the coupled channel π Σ − K ¯ N scattering amplitudes at energies near 1405 MeV. These amplitudes contain the resonance Λ ( 1405 ) with strangeness S = − 1 and isospin, spin, and parity quantum numbers I ( J P ) = 0 ( 1 / 2 − ) . However, whether there is a single resonance or two nearby resonance poles in this region is controversial theoretically and experimentally. Using single-baryon and meson-baryon operators to extract the finite-volume stationary-state energies to obtain the scattering amplitudes at slightly unphysical quark masses corresponding to m π ≈ 200 MeV and m K ≈ 487 MeV , this study finds the amplitudes exhibit a virtual bound state below the π Σ threshold in addition to the established resonance pole just below the K ¯ N threshold. Several parametrizations of the two-channel K matrix are employed to fit the lattice QCD results, all of which support the two-pole picture suggested by SU(3) chiral symmetry and unitarity. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗