Λ(1520) as a probe of resonance-driven deuteron formation at the LHC
Abstract
Light nuclei such as deuterons are produced abundantly in high-energy proton-proton and nuclear collisions despite their tiny binding energies. Their production mechanism remains unresolved, as both nucleon coalescence and statistical thermal models reproduce inclusive LHC yields. We propose a direct invariant-mass observable that discriminates between these scenarios using the long-lived Λ(1520) → pK resonance. If decay protons coalesce into deuterons, the produced nuclei remain correlated with the kaon, allowing the resonance peak to be reconstructed experimentally through proxy masses, M(d/2)K, formed from kaons and half the deuteron four-momentum. Using Thermal-FIST and PYTHIA with a deuteron coalescence afterburner, we show that a M(d/2)K peak emerges only in the coalescence scenario. This observable provides a direct experimental probe of resonance-fed deuteron production and of late-stage coalescence dynamics in high-energy collisions.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{tripathy2026λ1520,
title = {{$Λ$(1520) as a probe of resonance-driven deuteron formation at the LHC}},
author = {Sushanta Tripathy and Peter Christiansen},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.10668},
eprint = {2606.10668},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.10668},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Λ(1520) as a probe of resonance-driven deuteron formation at the LHC
AU - Sushanta Tripathy
AU - Peter Christiansen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.10668
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.10668
AB - Light nuclei such as deuterons are produced abundantly in high-energy proton-proton and nuclear collisions despite their tiny binding energies. Their production mechanism remains unresolved, as both nucleon coalescence and statistical thermal models reproduce inclusive LHC yields. We propose a direct invariant-mass observable that discriminates between these scenarios using the long-lived Λ(1520) → pK resonance. If decay protons coalesce into deuterons, the produced nuclei remain correlated with the kaon, allowing the resonance peak to be reconstructed experimentally through proxy masses, M_(d/2)K, formed from kaons and half the deuteron four-momentum. Using Thermal-FIST and PYTHIA with a deuteron coalescence afterburner, we show that a M_(d/2)K peak emerges only in the coalescence scenario. This observable provides a direct experimental probe of resonance-fed deuteron production and of late-stage coalescence dynamics in high-energy collisions.
ER -