We report a breakthrough discovery of Turing-driven spiral defect chaos (SDC) governed by stationary nucleation sites in time-discrete oscillatory systems-a phenomenon defying classical instability paradigms. Unlike conventional SDC requiring spiral tip migration, this novel state features frozen spiral cores that trigger global chaos through random birth-death processes at fixed spatial coordinates while maintaining absolute immobility. Three universal critical behaviors emerge: (1) Spiral lifetimes follow scale-free power-law distributions with a fixed exponent ([Formula: see text]), independent of control parameters; (2) Spiral tip densities exhibit parameter-invariant scaling laws, collapsing onto a single master curve approximating normal distributions; (3) Self-organized criticality enables multiscale pattern coexistence. Theoretical analyses trace this to a Turing bifurcation, where diffusion destabilizes homogeneous periodic states into "static-source/dynamic-propagation" dissipative structures. This mechanism establishes a new paradigm: localized fluctuations at immobilized tips drive global chaos-resolving the paradox of motionless yet destructive spiral cores. Our findings provide fundamental insights for designing cardiac defibrillators exploiting stationary spiral sources and forecasting ecological invasion fronts dominated by critical fluctuations.

Chirality lies at the heart of low-energy QCD, governing the symmetry structure that shapes hadron masses and strong interaction dynamics. Among the most compelling open questions tied to chiral dynamics and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking is the longstanding Λ polarization puzzle, in which Λ hyperons produced in unpolarized hadronic collisions exhibit a surprisingly large transverse polarization that remains theoretically unexplained. This whitepaper presents the proposal for the Hyperon-Nucleon Spectrometer (H-NS) at the High-Intensity heavy-ion Accelerator Facility (HIAF). Leveraging the high energy and high intensity of HIAF's proton and heavy-ion beams, the H-NS experiment will perform systematic studies of hyperon polarization phenomena and their underlying mechanisms in proton-proton (pp), proton-nucleus (pA), and nucleus-nucleus (AA) collisions in the fixed target mode. A wide-range beam energy scan, including proton beams from 3 GeV up to 9.3 GeV (HIAF) and up to 32 GeV (upgraded HIAF), will be conducted to examine the dependence of polarization on collision energy. The spectrometer is designed with specialized detectors capable of high-precision reconstruction of final-state baryon polarizations. Among its many interesting and important measurements, H-NS will simultaneously measure hyperon and proton spin observables to explore the polarization mechanism in hadronic interactions and the spin structure of baryons. Furthermore, the use of pA and AA collisions will enable detailed investigations of cold and hot nuclear matter effects on spin polarization. Its physics program and detector development will significantly benefit the future Electron-ion Collider in China.

We calculate the spin density matrix for neutral ρ mesons from the spectral function and thermal shear tensor by Kubo formula in the linear response theory, which contributes to the γ correlator for the CME search. We derive the spectral function of neutral ρ mesons with ρππ and ρρππ interactions using the Dyson-Schwinger equation. The thermal shear tensor contribution is obtained from the Kubo formula in the linear response theory. We numerically calculate ρ00–1/3 and Reρ−1,1 using the simulation results for the thermal shear tensor by the hydrodynamical model, which are of the order 10−3–10−2.

We present a systematic comparison of charmonium light-front wave functions obtained through two complementary nonperturbative approaches: basis light-front quantization (BLFQ) and Dyson-Schwinger equations (DSEs). Key observables include the charge form factor, gravitational form factors, light-cone distribution amplitudes, decay constants, and two-photon transition form factors. Despite their distinct theoretical foundations and model parameters, the predictions from BLFQ and DSEs exhibit remarkable agreement across all observables. This convergence validates both frameworks for studying charmonium structure and highlights the complementary strengths of Hamiltonian-based (BLFQ) and Lagrangian-based (DSEs) methods in addressing nonperturbative QCD.

The global spin polarization of hyperons in heavy-ion collisions have been investigated by including spin correlation effects among their constituent quarks. The available data on global spin polarizations of hyperons and spin alignments of vector mesons provide constraints on phase space functions of the spin polarization and correlation. These constraints can lead to inequalities under some approximations, which might provide possible clues for the presence of quark spin correlation inside hyperons at lower collision energies.

Classically deformed nuclear geometries are commonly employed in standard descriptions of relativistic collisions between two even-even nuclei, despite the fact that their exact ground states are rotationally invariant $0^+$ states. In this paper, we formulate the collision geometry directly from the eikonal scattering matrix based on a nonorthogonal Generator Coordinate Method construction of rotationally invariant ground states. In the optical limit, using a localized transported-density approximation for the collision-channel one-body response, rotational overlap localization generates an effective one-body density associated with the scattering process. Within this approximation, using the Gaussian Overlap Approximation and its heat-kernel representation, we show that rotational symmetry restoration acts as a geometric low-pass filter which exponentially suppresses effective deformation modes. The classical rigid-rotor limit is recovered for large intrinsic angular momentum fluctuations. We establish a microscopic framework connecting rotational symmetry restoration, collective overlap localization, and the effective deformation geometries of nuclei in high energy collisions.

We give an analytical expression for the in-plane polarization Px in heavy-ion collisions that has, to our knowledge, not been measured in heavy-ion collision experiments. We also carry out a numerical study of Px using a hydrodynamic-model simulation as a cross check for the analytical formula. It is found that if the temperature-gradient contribution is neglected the simulation result for Px qualitatively agrees with the analytical one. The prediction of Px can be tested in experiments and will contribute to provide a complete and consistent picture of spin phenomena in heavy-ion collisions.

We derive Boltzmann equations for production of mesons and baryons with the covariant quark coalescence model in high energy heavy-ion collisions, which arise from Kadanoff-Baym equations incorporating the effective interaction Lagrangian for hadrons and quarks (antiquarks). The coupling structures for spin-0, 1/2, 1 and 3/2 hadrons out of quarks (antiquarks) in the covariant quark coalescence model are briefly discussed.

Hyperon-antihyperon pairs produced from electron-positron annihilations provide a promising platform for exploring quantum-information properties in particle physics. In this work, we analyze quantum steering and quantum discord in hyperon-antihyperon systems produced from e & thorn;e- annihilations, based on the X-shaped spin density matrix reconstructed via quantum state tomography. We show that the behaviors of these correlations differ from those observed in elementary particle-antiparticle systems such as top quarks and tau leptons, owing to the polarization effects specific to hyperon decays. From the results, we examine the hierarchy of quantum correlations in hyperon-antihyperon systems, Bell nonlocality subset of steering subset of entanglement subset of discord. We also discuss the role of experimental loopholes and the impact of quantum decoherence in collider-based studies of quantum correlations.

Quantum correlations in high-energy collisions provide a novel perspective on both fundamental physics and hadron structure. We calculate the quantum information observable in spin-1/2 particle-antiparticle systems produced in e^+e^- annihilation. Starting from the two-qubit density operator, we calculate the Bell variable, concurrence and negativity as functions of the scattering angle and collision energy for the Λ, Σ^+^-, and Λ^+_c^-_c systems in the process e^+e^-→ BB̅ at BESIII experiments. Unlike elementary particle-antiparticle systems, the hyperon-antihyperon system exhibits non-vanishing transverse polarization for B and B̅ with respect to the production plane, which significantly restrict the kinematic region where the CHSH inequality is violated while leaving the entanglement largely unaffected. We also extend our analysis to the general case of spin-1/2 particle-antiparticle production, and explore the potential of using quantum correlations as probes to hadron structure, particularly to the parton-level entanglement inside heavy-flavored mesons.

The distribution of particles is highly anisotropic in the initial stage of a heavy-ion collision. In this paper we demonstrate that this anisotropy induces a sizable effect on the spin alignment of vector mesons. We study two different production mechanisms for ϕ and K^*0 mesons, on one hand the coalescence of quarks and on the other that of pseudoscalar mesons. In the quark-coalescence picture where ϕ and K^*0 are produced via a bare vector coupling to quarks, a negative δρ_00^y of order 10^-3 is observed. In contrast, when ϕ and K^*0 are produced via quark coalescence with a vertex with spin-orbit coupling, or when they are produced via pseudoscalar-meson coalescence, a positive δρ_00^y emerges. In all cases, the magnitude of the spin alignment is directly proportional to the degree of anisotropy. The sign difference between the cases provides a possibility to clarify the production mechanism for vector mesons.

We perform a first-principles, non-perturbative investigation of quantum entanglement between partonic constituents in a strongly coupled 3+1-dimensional scalar Yukawa theory, using light-front Hamiltonian methods with controlled Fock-space truncations. By explicitly constructing reduced density matrices for (mock) nucleon, pion, and anti-nucleon subsystems from light-front wave functions, we compute key entanglement witnesses, including von Neumann entropy, mutual information, and linear entropy, in both quenched (no sea pairs) and unquenched frameworks. We find that the entanglement entropy is closely related to the Shannon entropy of the transverse momentum dependent distribution, establishing a link between quantum information and parton structure. In contrast, the unquenched theory reveals genuinely non-classical correlations: the entanglement entropy cannot be reduced to any Shannon entropy of normalized parton distributions, demonstrating that the full hadronic wave function encodes quantum information beyond classical probabilities. Our findings highlight the role of entanglement as a fundamental probe of non-perturbative dynamics in relativistic quantum field theory and lay the groundwork for extending these concepts to QCD and future collider phenomenology.

Motivated by recent STAR's measurements on the global spin alignment of vector mesons which suggest quark-antiquark spin correlation, we carry out a systematic study on the spin correlations in high energy e+e− and heavyion collisions in a unified framework, on which we give a brief overview.

We investigate quark-antiquark entanglement in heavy quarkonium within a nonperturbative light-front Hamiltonian framework. By tracing over the antiquark degrees of freedom in the hadronic state vector, we construct the reduced density matrix of the quark subsystem and compute the associated von Neumann entropy. For spin-0 quarkonia, we show that this entropy reduces to the Shannon entropy of the unpolarized transverse momentum dependent parton distribution (TMD), up to constant color and spin contributions. For spin-1 quarkonia, we derive the explicit polarization dependence of the entropy and connect it to polarized and tensor-polarized TMDs. Using light-front wave functions obtained via basis light-front quantization (BLFQ), we evaluate the entanglement entropy for charmonium and bottomonium states, revealing a pronounced sensitivity to the polarization of vector mesons. Furthermore, we resolve the infrared parameter by matching the momentum-space entropy to a harmonic-oscillator representation. Ultimately, these results establish entanglement entropy as a novel probe of nonperturbative quarkonium structure, forging a direct link between quantum information measures and partonic observables.

We give a brief overview of spin entanglement and related quantum correlations in hyperon-antihyperon systems produced at high energies, with emphasis on channels accessible at e+e- colliders. Treating weak hyperon decays as generalized quantum spin measurements, we analyze the spin-density matrix, Bell inequalities, entanglement, steering and discord in e+e-->gamma & lowast;/psi -> Y and clarify the role of time-like electromagnetic form factors (EMFFs) in shaping these correlations.

We compute the 00 element of the spin density matrix, denoted as ρ 00 and called the spin alignment, up to the second order of the gradient expansion in local equilibrium by Zubarev’s approach. In the first order, we obtain ρ 00 = 1 / 3 , meaning that the contributions from thermal vorticity and shear stress tensor are vanishing. The nonvanishing contributions to ρ 00 − 1 / 3 appear in the second order of gradients in the Belinfante and canonical cases. We also discuss the properties of the spin density matrix under the time reversal transformation. The effective transport coefficient for the spin alignment induced by the thermal shear stress tensor is T odd in the first order, implying that the first order effect is dissipative.

We give an analytical expression for the last component of the spin polarization P^x, the in-plane polarization, in heavy-ion collisions that has, to our knowledge, not been discussed in theories nor measured in heavy-ion collision experiments. We also carry out a numerical study of P^x using a hydrodynamic model simulation as a cross-check for the analytical formula. It is found that if the temperature-gradient contribution is neglected the simulation result for P^x qualitatively agrees with the analytical one. The prediction of P^x can be tested in experiments and will contribute to provide a complete and consistent picture of spin phenomena in heavy-ion collisions.

Hyperon-antihyperon pairs produced in high-energy electron-positron annihilation are promising systems for the study of quantum information properties. In this work, we make an analysis of two types of quantum correlations, the quantum steering and discord, in hyperon-antihyperon systems produced in electron-positron annihilation based on the X-shaped spin density matrix. The behaviors of these quantum correlations differ from those in elementary particle-antiparticle systems such as the top quark and tau lepton due to the polarization effect. The hierarchy of quantum correlations is examined and partially confirmed in hyperon-antihyperon systems: Bell Nonlocality⊂Steering⊂Entanglement⊂Discord. The loopholes and quantum decoherence effect are also discussed in our work.

We have investigated the $\rho^{0}$ meson photoproduction in ultraperipheral isobaric collisions between $_{44}^{96}\textrm{Ru}+_{44}^{96}\textrm{Ru}$ and $_{40}^{96}\textrm{Zr}+_{40}^{96}\textrm{Zr}$ at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV, employing the dipole model with the equivalent photon approximation. By implementing the Woods-Saxon distribution to represent the nuclear mass density, which is derived from density functional theory with an inclusion of nuclear deformation effects, we have calculated the transverse momentum $q_{T}$ spectra in isobaric collisions. We observe the characteristic dip behavior in these spectra, indicative of diffraction phenomena in high-energy physics. We notice that the deformation effects cause a nearly linear increase with $q_{T}^{2}$ for $q_{T}^{2}\lesssim0.015$ $\textrm{GeV}^{2}$, aligning with experimental observations. We offer a simple explanation for the observed behavior in these spectra by introducing the effective width of the nuclei in the thickness function. We also extend our discussion on the $\rho^{0}$ meson photoproduction with the targets $^{63}\textrm{Cu}$,$^{197}\textrm{Au}$, and $^{238}\textrm{U}$.