Deuterium Production in an Effective Field Theory Constructed from On-Shell Amplitudes

[2608.23699] Deuterium Production in an Effective Field Theory Constructed from On-Shell Amplitudes Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Nuclear Theory arXiv:2608.23699 (nucl-th) [Submitted on 24 Aug 2026] Title: Deuterium Production in an Effective Field Theory Constructed from On-Shell Amplitudes Authors: Tim M.P. Tait View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: We compute the deuterium-production reaction $n+p \to d+\gamma$ in an effective field theory whose degrees of freedom are the nuclear states themselves: the amplitude is assembled from on-shell three-point vertices, glued across its factorization channels, and completed by the contact terms consistent with the symmetries. The deuteron enters through the $d$-$n$-$p$ vertex, normalized to the measured asymptotic normalization coefficient. Rescattering of the nucleon pair is resummed dispersively, leaving two short-distance constants, an isovector magnetic and an electric dipole contact interaction. A joint Bayesian fit to the thermal capture measurements and the SLEGS photodisintegration data finds both of natural size and determines the thermonuclear rate to 0.22-0.24% across the nucleosynthesis window, including systematics spanning the defensible treatments of the SLEGS data and of the $P$-wave rescattering. Truncating the expansion is bounded separately at 0.12%, of which the next order of contact terms -- degenerate with the two fitted constants -- supplies 0.03%, for a total theory uncertainty of 0.25-0.27%. Propagated through a BBN network, the rate shifts the predicted primordial deuterium by -0.06% and cuts this reaction's contribution to the D/H uncertainty from 0.089% to 0.050%, retiring it from the primordial D/H error budget for practical purposes. Comments: 20 pages, 8 figures; companion to arXiv:2607.05514 ; ancillary file anc/npdg_rate_table.csv tabulates the thermonuclear rate with its total theory uncertainty on the PRIMAT temperature grid Subjects: Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) ; Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) Report number: UCI-HEP-TR-2026-10 Cite as: arXiv:2608.23699 [nucl-th] (or arXiv:2608.23699v1 [nucl-th] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.23699 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Tim M. P. Tait [ view email ] [v1] Mon, 24 Aug 2026 18:00:08 UTC (430 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Ancillary-file links: Ancillary files ( details ) : npdg_rate_table.csv Current browse context: nucl-th < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: astro-ph astro-ph.CO hep-ph hep-th References & Citations INSPIRE HEP SciX Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab)

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