Evidence of isospin-symmetry violation in high-energy collisions of atomic nuclei

2025
journal article
article
dc.abstract.enStrong interactions preserve an approximate isospin symmetry between up (u) and down (d) quarks, part of the more general flavor symmetry. In the case of K meson production, if this isospin symmetry were exact, it would result in equal numbers of charged (K$^{+}$ and K$^{−}$) and neutral (K$^{0}$ and $\overline{K}^{0}$) mesons produced in collisions of isospin-symmetric atomic nuclei. Here, we report results on the relative abundance of charged over neutral K meson production in argon and scandium nuclei collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 11.9 GeV per nucleon pair. We find that the production of K$^{+}$ and K$^{−}$ mesons at mid-rapidity is (18.4 ± 6.1)% higher than that of the neutral K mesons. Although with large uncertainties, earlier data on nucleus-nucleus collisions in the collision center-of-mass energy range 2.6 < $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ < 200 GeV are consistent with the present result. Using well-established models for hadron production, we demonstrate that known isospin-symmetry breaking effects and the initial nuclei containing more neutrons than protons lead only to a small (few percent) deviation of the charged-to-neutral kaon ratio from unity at high energies. Thus, they cannot explain the measurements. The significance of the flavor-symmetry violation beyond the known effects is 4.7σ when the compilation of world data with uncertainties quoted by the experiments is used. New systematic, high-precision measurements and theoretical efforts are needed to establish the origin of the observed large isospin-symmetry breaking.
dc.affiliationSzkoła Doktorska Nauk Ścisłych i Przyrodniczych
dc.affiliationWydział Fizyki, Astronomii i Informatyki Stosowanej : Instytut Fizyki im. Mariana Smoluchowskiego
dc.contributor.authorAdhikary, H.
dc.contributor.authorAdrich, P.
dc.contributor.authorAllison, K. K.
dc.contributor.authorAmin, N.
dc.contributor.authorAndronov, E. V.
dc.contributor.authorArsene, I. -C.
dc.contributor.authorBajda, Mateusz - 401971
dc.contributor.authorBalkova, Y.
dc.contributor.authorBattaglia, D.
dc.contributor.authorBazgir, A.
dc.contributor.authorBhosale, S.
dc.contributor.authorBielewicz, M.
dc.contributor.authorBlondel, A.
dc.contributor.authorBogomilov, M.
dc.contributor.authorBondar, Y.
dc.contributor.authorBrandin, A.
dc.contributor.authorBryliński, W.
dc.contributor.authorBrzychczyk, Janusz - 100130
dc.contributor.authorBuryakov, M.
dc.contributor.authorCamino, A. F.
dc.contributor.authorĆirković, M.
dc.contributor.authorCsanád, M.
dc.contributor.authorCybowska, J.
dc.contributor.authorCzopowicz, T.
dc.contributor.authorDalmazzone, C.
dc.contributor.authorDavis, N.
dc.contributor.authorDmitriev, A.
dc.contributor.authorvon Doetinchem, P.
dc.contributor.authorDominik, W.
dc.contributor.authorDumarchez, J.
dc.contributor.authorEngel, R.
dc.contributor.authorFeofilov, G. A.
dc.contributor.authorFields, L.
dc.contributor.authorFodor, Z.
dc.contributor.authorFriend, M.
dc.contributor.authorGaździcki, M.
dc.contributor.authorGolosov, O.
dc.contributor.authorGolovatyuk, V.
dc.contributor.authorGolubeva, M.
dc.contributor.authorGrebieszkow, K.
dc.contributor.authorGuber, F.
dc.contributor.authorIgolkin, S. N.
dc.contributor.authorIlieva, S.
dc.contributor.authorIvashkin, A.
dc.contributor.authorIzvestnyy, A.
dc.contributor.authorKargin, N.
dc.contributor.authorKarpushkin, N.
dc.contributor.authorKashirin, E.
dc.contributor.authorKiełbowicz, M.
dc.contributor.authorKireyeu, V. A.
dc.contributor.authorKolesnikov, R.
dc.contributor.authorKolev, D.
dc.contributor.authorKoshio, Y.
dc.contributor.authorKovalenko, V. N.
dc.contributor.authorKowalski, S.
dc.contributor.authorKozłowski, B.
dc.contributor.authorKrasnoperov, A.
dc.contributor.authorKucewicz, W.
dc.contributor.authorKuchowicz, M.
dc.contributor.authorKuich, M.
dc.contributor.authorKurepin, A.
dc.contributor.authorLászló, A.
dc.contributor.authorLewicki, M.
dc.contributor.authorLykasov, G.
dc.contributor.authorLyubushkin, V. V.
dc.contributor.authorMaćkowiak-Pawłowska, M.
dc.contributor.authorMajka, Zbigniew - 130226
dc.contributor.authorMakhnev, A.
dc.contributor.authorMaksiak, B.
dc.contributor.authorMalakhov, A. I.
dc.contributor.authorMarcinek, A.
dc.contributor.authorMarino, A. D.
dc.contributor.authorMathes, H. -J.
dc.contributor.authorMatulewicz, T.
dc.contributor.authorMatveev, V.
dc.contributor.authorMelkumov, G. L.
dc.contributor.authorMerzlaya, A.
dc.contributor.authorMik, Ł.
dc.contributor.authorMorozov, S.
dc.contributor.authorNagai, Y.
dc.contributor.authorNakadaira, T.
dc.contributor.authorNaskret, M.
dc.contributor.authorNishimori, S.
dc.contributor.authorOlivier, A.
dc.contributor.authorOzvenchuk, V.
dc.contributor.authorPanova, O.
dc.contributor.authorPaolone, V.
dc.contributor.authorPetukhov, O.
dc.contributor.authorPidhurskyi, I.
dc.contributor.authorPłaneta, Roman - 100063
dc.contributor.authorPodlaski, P.
dc.contributor.authorPopov, B. A.
dc.contributor.authorPórfy, B.
dc.contributor.authorProkhorova, D. S.
dc.contributor.authorPszczel, D.
dc.contributor.authorPuławski, S.
dc.contributor.authorPuzović, J.
dc.contributor.authorRenfordt, R.
dc.contributor.authorRen, L.
dc.contributor.authorOrtiz, V. Z. Reyna
dc.contributor.authorRöhrich, D.
dc.contributor.authorRondio, E.
dc.contributor.authorRoth, M.
dc.contributor.authorRozpłochowski, Ł.
dc.contributor.authorRumberger, B. T.
dc.contributor.authorRumyantsev, M.
dc.contributor.authorRustamov, A.
dc.contributor.authorRybczynski, M.
dc.contributor.authorRybicki, A.
dc.contributor.authorRybka, D.
dc.contributor.authorSakashita, K.
dc.contributor.authorSchmidt, K.
dc.contributor.authorSeryakov, A. Y.
dc.contributor.authorSeyboth, P.
dc.contributor.authorShah, U. A.
dc.contributor.authorShiraishi, Y.
dc.contributor.authorShukla, A.
dc.contributor.authorSłodkowski, M.
dc.contributor.authorStaszel, Paweł - 100533
dc.contributor.authorStefanek, G.
dc.contributor.authorStepaniak, J.
dc.contributor.authorStrikhanov, M.
dc.contributor.authorStröbele, H.
dc.contributor.authorŠuša, T.
dc.contributor.authorŚwiderski, Ł.
dc.contributor.authorSzewiński, J.
dc.contributor.authorSzukiewicz, R.
dc.contributor.authorTaranenko, A.
dc.contributor.authorTefelska, A.
dc.contributor.authorTefelski, D.
dc.contributor.authorTereshchenko, V.
dc.contributor.authorTsenov, R.
dc.contributor.authorTurko, L.
dc.contributor.authorTveter, T. S.
dc.contributor.authorUnger, M.
dc.contributor.authorUrbaniak, M.
dc.contributor.authorValiev, F. F.
dc.contributor.authorVeberič, D.
dc.contributor.authorVechernin, V. V.
dc.contributor.authorVitiuk, O.
dc.contributor.authorVolkov, V.
dc.contributor.authorWickremasinghe, A.
dc.contributor.authorWitek, K.
dc.contributor.authorWójcik, K.
dc.contributor.authorWyszyński, O.
dc.contributor.authorZaitsev, A.
dc.contributor.authorZherebtsova, E.
dc.contributor.authorZimmerman, E. D.
dc.contributor.authorZviagina, A.
dc.contributor.authorZwaska, R.
dc.contributor.authorGiacosa, F.
dc.contributor.authorGorenstein, M.
dc.contributor.authorPoberezhniuk, R.
dc.contributor.authorSamanta, S.
dc.contributor.institutionThe NA61/SHINE Collaboration
dc.date.accessioned2025-03-26T08:59:12Z
dc.date.available2025-03-26T08:59:12Z
dc.date.createdat2025-03-24T08:48:39Zen
dc.date.issued2025
dc.date.openaccess0
dc.description.accesstimew momencie opublikowania
dc.description.number1
dc.description.versionostateczna wersja wydawcy
dc.description.volume16
dc.identifier.articleid2849
dc.identifier.doi10.1038/s41467-025-57234-6
dc.identifier.issn2041-1723
dc.identifier.urihttps://ruj.uj.edu.pl/handle/item/550700
dc.languageeng
dc.language.containereng
dc.rightsUdzielam licencji. Uznanie autorstwa - Użycie niekomercyjne - Bez utworów zależnych 4.0 Międzynarodowa
dc.rights.licenceCC-BY-NC-ND
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode.pl
dc.share.typeotwarte czasopismo
dc.subtypeArticle
dc.titleEvidence of isospin-symmetry violation in high-energy collisions of atomic nuclei
dc.title.journalNature Communications
dc.typeJournalArticle
dspace.entity.typePublicationen
dc.abstract.en
Strong interactions preserve an approximate isospin symmetry between up (u) and down (d) quarks, part of the more general flavor symmetry. In the case of K meson production, if this isospin symmetry were exact, it would result in equal numbers of charged (K$^{+}$ and K$^{−}$) and neutral (K$^{0}$ and $\overline{K}^{0}$) mesons produced in collisions of isospin-symmetric atomic nuclei. Here, we report results on the relative abundance of charged over neutral K meson production in argon and scandium nuclei collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 11.9 GeV per nucleon pair. We find that the production of K$^{+}$ and K$^{−}$ mesons at mid-rapidity is (18.4 ± 6.1)% higher than that of the neutral K mesons. Although with large uncertainties, earlier data on nucleus-nucleus collisions in the collision center-of-mass energy range 2.6 < $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ < 200 GeV are consistent with the present result. Using well-established models for hadron production, we demonstrate that known isospin-symmetry breaking effects and the initial nuclei containing more neutrons than protons lead only to a small (few percent) deviation of the charged-to-neutral kaon ratio from unity at high energies. Thus, they cannot explain the measurements. The significance of the flavor-symmetry violation beyond the known effects is 4.7σ when the compilation of world data with uncertainties quoted by the experiments is used. New systematic, high-precision measurements and theoretical efforts are needed to establish the origin of the observed large isospin-symmetry breaking.
dc.affiliation
Szkoła Doktorska Nauk Ścisłych i Przyrodniczych
dc.affiliation
Wydział Fizyki, Astronomii i Informatyki Stosowanej : Instytut Fizyki im. Mariana Smoluchowskiego
dc.contributor.author
Adhikary, H.
dc.contributor.author
Adrich, P.
dc.contributor.author
Allison, K. K.
dc.contributor.author
Amin, N.
dc.contributor.author
Andronov, E. V.
dc.contributor.author
Arsene, I. -C.
dc.contributor.author
Bajda, Mateusz - 401971
dc.contributor.author
Balkova, Y.
dc.contributor.author
Battaglia, D.
dc.contributor.author
Bazgir, A.
dc.contributor.author
Bhosale, S.
dc.contributor.author
Bielewicz, M.
dc.contributor.author
Blondel, A.
dc.contributor.author
Bogomilov, M.
dc.contributor.author
Bondar, Y.
dc.contributor.author
Brandin, A.
dc.contributor.author
Bryliński, W.
dc.contributor.author
Brzychczyk, Janusz - 100130
dc.contributor.author
Buryakov, M.
dc.contributor.author
Camino, A. F.
dc.contributor.author
Ćirković, M.
dc.contributor.author
Csanád, M.
dc.contributor.author
Cybowska, J.
dc.contributor.author
Czopowicz, T.
dc.contributor.author
Dalmazzone, C.
dc.contributor.author
Davis, N.
dc.contributor.author
Dmitriev, A.
dc.contributor.author
von Doetinchem, P.
dc.contributor.author
Dominik, W.
dc.contributor.author
Dumarchez, J.
dc.contributor.author
Engel, R.
dc.contributor.author
Feofilov, G. A.
dc.contributor.author
Fields, L.
dc.contributor.author
Fodor, Z.
dc.contributor.author
Friend, M.
dc.contributor.author
Gaździcki, M.
dc.contributor.author
Golosov, O.
dc.contributor.author
Golovatyuk, V.
dc.contributor.author
Golubeva, M.
dc.contributor.author
Grebieszkow, K.
dc.contributor.author
Guber, F.
dc.contributor.author
Igolkin, S. N.
dc.contributor.author
Ilieva, S.
dc.contributor.author
Ivashkin, A.
dc.contributor.author
Izvestnyy, A.
dc.contributor.author
Kargin, N.
dc.contributor.author
Karpushkin, N.
dc.contributor.author
Kashirin, E.
dc.contributor.author
Kiełbowicz, M.
dc.contributor.author
Kireyeu, V. A.
dc.contributor.author
Kolesnikov, R.
dc.contributor.author
Kolev, D.
dc.contributor.author
Koshio, Y.
dc.contributor.author
Kovalenko, V. N.
dc.contributor.author
Kowalski, S.
dc.contributor.author
Kozłowski, B.
dc.contributor.author
Krasnoperov, A.
dc.contributor.author
Kucewicz, W.
dc.contributor.author
Kuchowicz, M.
dc.contributor.author
Kuich, M.
dc.contributor.author
Kurepin, A.
dc.contributor.author
László, A.
dc.contributor.author
Lewicki, M.
dc.contributor.author
Lykasov, G.
dc.contributor.author
Lyubushkin, V. V.
dc.contributor.author
Maćkowiak-Pawłowska, M.
dc.contributor.author
Majka, Zbigniew - 130226
dc.contributor.author
Makhnev, A.
dc.contributor.author
Maksiak, B.
dc.contributor.author
Malakhov, A. I.
dc.contributor.author
Marcinek, A.
dc.contributor.author
Marino, A. D.
dc.contributor.author
Mathes, H. -J.
dc.contributor.author
Matulewicz, T.
dc.contributor.author
Matveev, V.
dc.contributor.author
Melkumov, G. L.
dc.contributor.author
Merzlaya, A.
dc.contributor.author
Mik, Ł.
dc.contributor.author
Morozov, S.
dc.contributor.author
Nagai, Y.
dc.contributor.author
Nakadaira, T.
dc.contributor.author
Naskret, M.
dc.contributor.author
Nishimori, S.
dc.contributor.author
Olivier, A.
dc.contributor.author
Ozvenchuk, V.
dc.contributor.author
Panova, O.
dc.contributor.author
Paolone, V.
dc.contributor.author
Petukhov, O.
dc.contributor.author
Pidhurskyi, I.
dc.contributor.author
Płaneta, Roman - 100063
dc.contributor.author
Podlaski, P.
dc.contributor.author
Popov, B. A.
dc.contributor.author
Pórfy, B.
dc.contributor.author
Prokhorova, D. S.
dc.contributor.author
Pszczel, D.
dc.contributor.author
Puławski, S.
dc.contributor.author
Puzović, J.
dc.contributor.author
Renfordt, R.
dc.contributor.author
Ren, L.
dc.contributor.author
Ortiz, V. Z. Reyna
dc.contributor.author
Röhrich, D.
dc.contributor.author
Rondio, E.
dc.contributor.author
Roth, M.
dc.contributor.author
Rozpłochowski, Ł.
dc.contributor.author
Rumberger, B. T.
dc.contributor.author
Rumyantsev, M.
dc.contributor.author
Rustamov, A.
dc.contributor.author
Rybczynski, M.
dc.contributor.author
Rybicki, A.
dc.contributor.author
Rybka, D.
dc.contributor.author
Sakashita, K.
dc.contributor.author
Schmidt, K.
dc.contributor.author
Seryakov, A. Y.
dc.contributor.author
Seyboth, P.
dc.contributor.author
Shah, U. A.
dc.contributor.author
Shiraishi, Y.
dc.contributor.author
Shukla, A.
dc.contributor.author
Słodkowski, M.
dc.contributor.author
Staszel, Paweł - 100533
dc.contributor.author
Stefanek, G.
dc.contributor.author
Stepaniak, J.
dc.contributor.author
Strikhanov, M.
dc.contributor.author
Ströbele, H.
dc.contributor.author
Šuša, T.
dc.contributor.author
Świderski, Ł.
dc.contributor.author
Szewiński, J.
dc.contributor.author
Szukiewicz, R.
dc.contributor.author
Taranenko, A.
dc.contributor.author
Tefelska, A.
dc.contributor.author
Tefelski, D.
dc.contributor.author
Tereshchenko, V.
dc.contributor.author
Tsenov, R.
dc.contributor.author
Turko, L.
dc.contributor.author
Tveter, T. S.
dc.contributor.author
Unger, M.
dc.contributor.author
Urbaniak, M.
dc.contributor.author
Valiev, F. F.
dc.contributor.author
Veberič, D.
dc.contributor.author
Vechernin, V. V.
dc.contributor.author
Vitiuk, O.
dc.contributor.author
Volkov, V.
dc.contributor.author
Wickremasinghe, A.
dc.contributor.author
Witek, K.
dc.contributor.author
Wójcik, K.
dc.contributor.author
Wyszyński, O.
dc.contributor.author
Zaitsev, A.
dc.contributor.author
Zherebtsova, E.
dc.contributor.author
Zimmerman, E. D.
dc.contributor.author
Zviagina, A.
dc.contributor.author
Zwaska, R.
dc.contributor.author
Giacosa, F.
dc.contributor.author
Gorenstein, M.
dc.contributor.author
Poberezhniuk, R.
dc.contributor.author
Samanta, S.
dc.contributor.institution
The NA61/SHINE Collaboration
dc.date.accessioned
2025-03-26T08:59:12Z
dc.date.available
2025-03-26T08:59:12Z
dc.date.createdaten
2025-03-24T08:48:39Z
dc.date.issued
2025
dc.date.openaccess
0
dc.description.accesstime
w momencie opublikowania
dc.description.number
1
dc.description.version
ostateczna wersja wydawcy
dc.description.volume
16
dc.identifier.articleid
2849
dc.identifier.doi
10.1038/s41467-025-57234-6
dc.identifier.issn
2041-1723
dc.identifier.uri
https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/handle/item/550700
dc.language
eng
dc.language.container
eng
dc.rights
Udzielam licencji. Uznanie autorstwa - Użycie niekomercyjne - Bez utworów zależnych 4.0 Międzynarodowa
dc.rights.licence
CC-BY-NC-ND
dc.rights.uri
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode.pl
dc.share.type
otwarte czasopismo
dc.subtype
Article
dc.title
Evidence of isospin-symmetry violation in high-energy collisions of atomic nuclei
dc.title.journal
Nature Communications
dc.type
JournalArticle
dspace.entity.typeen
Publication
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