Nuclear Physics, Hadronic Physics and high Temperature QCD in High Energy Collisions (NuHaTeQ)

May 11, 2026, 2:00 PM → May 12, 2026, 1:00 PM Europe/Rome

The Catania Unit of Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN),  and the Physics and Astronomy Department (DFA) of the University of Catania, are pleased to announce the organization of the topical workshop on Nuclear, Hadronic and High-Temperature QCD Physics in High Energy Collisions. The meeting will be held at the DFA of Catania on May 11 and 12, 2026. 

The workshop has an informal character and aims at stimulating new ideas along the core business of high temperature QCD investigations at the Large Hadron Collider, specifically towards interdisciplinary aspect of nuclear and hadronic physics.

The workshop will cover interdisciplinary topics, including:

- Nuclear phenomena in ultra-peripheral collisions at LHC and RHIC energies

- Transmutation

- Neutron skin thickness and its impact of symmetry energy and neutron stars

- Femtoscopy and resonance decays

- Mechanisms of composite particle production

- Properties of the QCD medium

The scientific sessions will consist of invited oral presentations, followed by open discussions on possible new ideas in view of the future perspectives offered by the ALICE3 apparatus at CERN-LHC.

Mon, May 11

2:00 PM → 2:15 PM Welcome

Conveners: Federico Antinori (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), Giuseppe Verde (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

2:15 PM → 4:15 PM Nuclear Physics in Collisions and EoS

Convener: Angela Badala' (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

2:15 PM Turning lead into gold through photon interactions

The first measurement of the cross section for neutron and proton emission in ultraperipheral $^{208}$Pb–$^{208}$Pb collisions at LHC have been measured by ALICE. Electromagnetic dissociation (EMD) processes have a cross section that is nearly 20 times larger than the hadronic cross section and that mainly result in the emission of few neutrons at the LHC energies. On the other hand, the cross sections for the emission of protons are comparable to the total hadronic cross section.
ALICE measurements exploiting the neutron and (for the first time at LHC) proton Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDC) will be presented. According to the Relativistic Electromagnetic DISsociation (RELDIS) model, these proton emission cross sections serve as upper limits for the production of the respective secondary nuclei, Tl, Hg, and Au, in the EMD of 208Pb. The cross sections for the emission of a single proton in coincidence with one, two, or three neutrons provide insights on the production of thallium isotopes.
These new results from LHC provide valuable input and crucial insights about beam luminosity decay and beam losses to be considered for the design of future ion colliders like EIC and the FCC.

Speaker: Chiara Oppedisano (INFN Torino)

Catania2026-Op.pdf

2:45 PM Imaging nuclei by smashing them: a possible unifying paradigm for nuclear physics

Imaging nuclei by smashing them: a possible unifying paradigm for nuclear physics

Speaker: Jiangyong Jia (Stony Brook)

3:15 PM Clustering phenomenology in nuclear systems

An overview of clustering phenomenology in nuclear systems and the relevance of light alpha-conjugate nuclei

Speaker: Ivano Lombardo (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

Clusters_IL_workCT.pptx

3:45 PM Probing the Symmetry Energy at relativistic energies at GSI/FAIR

The ASYEOS experiment and its implications on the EoS and Esym. The talk will discuss elliptic flow measurements with protons and neutrons.

Speaker: Paolo Russotto (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

NP-HP-TQCD.pptx

4:15 PM → 4:35 PM Refreshment Break

4:35 PM → 6:35 PM Femtoscopy

Convener: Alberto Calivà (University of Salerno)

4:35 PM Femtoscopy in nuclear physics at sub-Gev energies

The talk focuses on a short overview of how Femtoscopy is used in low and intermediate energy HIC, with special emphasis in Imaging techinques, implications for transport models and differences ith respect to high energy collisions

Speaker: Giuseppe Verde (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

NuHaTeQ 2926 - Verde.pdf

5:05 PM On the possible existence of a S = −3, I = 1 pentaquark

In this exploratory work we analyze the possible existence of a strangeness S=-3, isospin I=1 pentaquark state Psss generated dynamically from the Kbar Xi interaction. We employ a unitarized scheme in coupled channels based on the chiral Lagrangian expanded up to next-to-leading order (NLO), and show that the inclusion of the NLO terms can be crucial to provide the necessary attraction that favors the existence of such triply strange pentaquark. The Kbar xi femtoscopic correlation functions are calculated as example of a possible experimental measurement in which a direct signal of the Psss state could be observed.

Speaker: Isaac Vidana Haro (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

Vidana_CT_MAY.pdf

5:35 PM Femtoscopy with ALICE: Accessing hadronic interactions and nuclei formation

The latest results from femtoscopy studies performed by the ALICE Collaboration in different nucleus-nucleus collision systems at the LHC will be presented. Femtoscopy has proven to be a powerful alternative to traditional approaches, such as scattering experiments and hypernuclear spectroscopy, to constrain the strong interaction among hadrons. Correlation studies with light nuclei further provide direct insights into the microscopic mechanisms driving their production in high-energy collisions.

Newly published results from Run 2 will be presented, including baryon-baryon and baryon-meson systems with strangeness, such as $\Sigma^+$-p, $\Xi^-$-$\pi$, and $\Xi^-$-K in pp collisions, as well as $\pi$-d correlations that shed light on the formation mechanism of light nuclei.

Exploiting the large datasets currently available in the ongoing Run 3, high-precision femtoscopy results will be shown for systems such as p-p and $\Lambda$-d. Measurements on $\Lambda_c$-p pairs extend femtoscopy into the charm sector, while the study of three-body correlations functions, such as $\Lambda$-p-p, provide novel access to the dynamics of three-body systems involving strangeness.

Speaker: Oton Vazquez Doce (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

CataniaWorkshopMay2026.pdf

6:05 PM Studying the proton-emitting source from "small" to "large" colliding systems at the LHC energies using femtotoscopy

Space–time properties of particle-emitting sources created in ultrarelativistic ion collisions can be studied using femtoscopic correlations of particle pairs. In this talk, we discuss the basic concepts of the femtoscopic technique and present recent results of 1D femtoscopic analyses with proton pairs measured by the ALICE. The femtoscopic proton radii are extracted in pp collisions at 900 GeV and OO, Ne--Ne and Pb--Pb at 5.36 TeV, providing a detailed picture of proton-emitting source sizes across various colliding systems, from "small" to "large". Signatures of a common scaling with the event multiplicity density are discussed. In addition to the 1D results , a novel approach of extracting the proton radii with the three-dimensional source parametrization is proposed and the possibility of extracting the 3D proton radii in Pb--Pb collisions at 5.36 TeV is examined.

Speaker: Gleb Romanenko (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

Tue, May 12

9:00 AM → 10:40 AM Composite Particles and Nulcear Phenomena

Convener: Enrico Fragiacomo (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

9:00 AM Hypernuclei in ALICE: Recent Results and Future Prospects with ALICE3 experiment

In this talk I will present an overview of recent ALICE measurements on hypernuclei and their implications for the understanding of the hyperon-nucleon interaction.
I will also discuss future measurements and the potential discovery of exotic (anti)hypernuclei with the ALICE3 experiment.

Speaker: Alberto Calivà (University of Salerno)

Hypernuclei in ALICE.pdf

9:30 AM Recent results and new directions about light (anti)nuclei production with ALICE

In this talk, I will present an overview of recent results on light (anti)nuclei production from the ALICE experiment, with a discussion on how these results fit into the current theoretical framework. New directions on light (anti)nuclei measurements possible with the ALICE3 experiment will be also presented.

Speaker: Marika Rasà (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

Rasa_Nuclei_ALICE_CTworkshop.pdf

10:00 AM Nuclear Physics at the LHC

An overview of nuclear physics topics to be studied at LHC

Speaker: Alexander Kalweit (CERN)

Talk_Catania_Nuclear_Physics_at_the_LHC.pdf

10:40 AM → 11:00 AM Refreshment Break

11:00 AM → 1:00 PM Heavy Flavour and the uture of ALICE

Convener: Paola La Rocca (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

11:00 AM Heavy flavors in nuclear collisions at LHC

Review of Heavy flavor studies at LHC.

Speaker: Federico Antinori (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

FA-Catania-260512.pdf

11:40 AM Heavy-Quark Dynamics in Ultra-Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

A theoretical review on heavy quark production

Speaker: Salvatore Plumari (LNS)

12:10 PM Silicon Trackers to Probe Extreme QCD and Nuclear Matter

An overview of technology on silicon trackers for the ALICE3 experiment and implications on other areas of nuclear physics research

Speaker: Kshitij Agarwal (Universita e INFN Trieste (IT))

20260512_Agarwal_CataniaWorkshop.pdf