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Hyperon Spin Correlation in High-Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions

Xin-Li Sheng1,*, Xiang-Yu Wu2,†, Dirk H. Rischke3,4,‡, and Xin-Nian Wang5,3,§

  • 1Università di Firenze and INFN Sezione di Firenze, Via G. Sansone 1, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino (Florence), Italy
  • 2Department of Physics, McGill University, 3600 University Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T8, Canada
  • 3Institut für Theoretische Physik, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Max-von-Laue-Straße 1, D-60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  • 4Helmholtz Research Academy Hesse for FAIR, Campus Riedberg, Max-von-Laue-Straße 12, D-60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  • 5Key Laboratory of Quark and Lepton Physics (MOE) and Institute of Particle Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China

  • *Contact author: sheng@fi.infn.it
  • †Contact author: xiangyu.wu2@mail.mcgill.ca
  • ‡Contact author: drischke@itp.uni-frankfurt.de
  • §Contact author: xnwang@ccnu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 082301 – Published 26 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/z5kk-98my

Abstract

Recent experimental data show an unexpectedly large spin alignment of ϕ mesons in high-energy heavy-ion collisions, which can be explained by short-distance fluctuations of strong-force fields (vector ϕ fields) within the constituent-quark model. We calculate the hyperon spin correlations within the same model, taking into account hydrodynamic effects and a ϕ field fluctuating in space-time according to a Gaussian distribution. The ΛΛ¯ spin correlation induced by the ϕ field is shown to be negative as opposed to that of ΛΛ or Λ¯Λ¯. We thus propose a new net spin-correlation observable as a sensitive probe to separate strong-force effects from hydrodynamic ones. With the strength of the field fluctuations extracted from the observed ϕ spin alignment, we predict the collision-energy dependence of the hyperon spin correlations and also investigate the dependence of the net spin correlation on azimuthal-angle and rapidity difference.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 082301– Published 26 February, 2026
  • Received 14 August 2025
  • Revised 15 December 2025
  • Accepted 4 February 2026
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