Meson-nucleus bound states with neural-network quantum states
Abstract
We present the first systematic calculations of ϕ-, ηc-, and J/ψ-nucleus ground states up to mass number A=12 based on the HAL QCD meson-nucleon potentials at near-physical point. The (A+1)-body Schrödinger equation is solved with a neural-network variational Monte Carlo framework, generalized to incorporate mesonic degrees of freedom. Benchmarking on light nuclei from 2H to 12C yields ground-state energies consistent with the experiment. Meson-nucleus bound states emerge at A≥2 for ϕ, A≥4 for J/ψ, and A≥6 for ηc. The ϕ-nucleus systems exhibit the strongest binding, with binding energies reaching tens of MeV. The J/ψ-nucleus and ηc-nucleus systems are weakly bound at the few-MeV and sub-MeV scale, respectively. The binding energy per nucleon deepens nearly linearly with A for charmonium systems, whereas the ϕ-nucleus system exhibits a non-monotonic behavior peaking at 4He---a distinctive hallmark of the short-range and strongly attractive ϕN interaction. The meson compresses the nucleon distribution relative to the parent nucleus, and evolves from a halo configuration to one embedded inside the nucleus with increasing A. Our results provide predictions for future experimental searches, and establish a quantitative bridge between lattice QCD meson-nucleon interactions and the emergent many-body phenomena in meson-nucleus bound states.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{wu2026mesonnucleus,
title = {{Meson-nucleus bound states with neural-network quantum states}},
author = {Wei-Lin Wu and Liang-Zhen Wen and Shi-Lin Zhu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.09254},
eprint = {2606.09254},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.09254},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Meson-nucleus bound states with neural-network quantum states
AU - Wei-Lin Wu
AU - Liang-Zhen Wen
AU - Shi-Lin Zhu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/30
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.09254
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.09254
AB - We present the first systematic calculations of ϕ-, η_c-, and J/ψ-nucleus ground states up to mass number A=12 based on the HAL QCD meson-nucleon potentials at near-physical point. The (A+1)-body Schrödinger equation is solved with a neural-network variational Monte Carlo framework, generalized to incorporate mesonic degrees of freedom. Benchmarking on light nuclei from ^2H to ^12C yields ground-state energies consistent with the experiment. Meson-nucleus bound states emerge at A≥2 for ϕ, A≥4 for J/ψ, and A≥6 for η_c. The ϕ-nucleus systems exhibit the strongest binding, with binding energies reaching tens of MeV. The J/ψ-nucleus and η_c-nucleus systems are weakly bound at the few-MeV and sub-MeV scale, respectively. The binding energy per nucleon deepens nearly linearly with A for charmonium systems, whereas the ϕ-nucleus system exhibits a non-monotonic behavior peaking at ^4He---a distinctive hallmark of the short-range and strongly attractive ϕN interaction. The meson compresses the nucleon distribution relative to the parent nucleus, and evolves from a halo configuration to one embedded inside the nucleus with increasing A. Our results provide predictions for future experimental searches, and establish a quantitative bridge between lattice QCD meson-nucleon interactions and the emergent many-body phenomena in meson-nucleus bound states.
ER -