APS DNP 2026 Fall Meeting

Invited Sessions

Sessions titles:

1. Advances in reaction rates for explosive hydrogen burning
2. From ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions to the Electron-Ion Collider
3. Imagining the nucleon at large Bjorken x
4. New Results From Laser Probing of Nuclei
5. The Partonic Structure and Dynamics of Nuclear Matter
6. Pushing the boundaries of exotic nuclei with complementary techniques
7. Recent developments in light hadron spectroscopy

Overview for each session:

1. Advances in reaction rates for explosive hydrogen burning: Sensitive experimental techniques and new beams are advancing our understanding of the most important reaction rates for novae, X-ray bursts, and the proton-rich ejecta of supernovae. This session will highlight recent advances using different facilities and approaches.
2. From ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions to the Electron-Ion Collider: The nuclear physics community has entered a critical transition period: RHIC has completed its experimental program, and the LHC is in a long shutdown. With massive datasets now on tape, the pressing question is how to maximally utilize these final collider results to directly inform the science of the future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC).  This session focuses on how photon-induced measurements in ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions currently serve as our near-term baseline for electron-ion physics, bringing together the heavy-ion and cold-nuclear-matter communities to synthesize these final collider results with state-of-the-art theory.
3. Imagining the nucleon at large Bjorken x: The Jefferson Lab 12 GeV Upgrade has enabled unprecedented access to the measurement of the structure of nucleons and nuclei at large x.  Recent results provide new measurements of the polarized quark distributions at large x via inclusive electron scattering from polarized ³He.  Semi-inclusive pion production using magnetic focusing spectrometers will provide crucial information on the contribution of longitudinal photons to the SIDIS process.  SIDIS measurements using the large acceptance CLAS12 spectrometer in Hall B will provide measurements of numerous SIDIS channels from polarized and unpolarized targets, providing constraints on the transverse quark structure of nucleons
4. New Results From Laser Probing of Nuclei: This session showcases the latest results from the increasing overlap between atomic/molecular/optical physics and condensed matter physics with nuclear physics that involves using lasers to probe and manipulate atomic nuclei. These results demonstrate progress towards new ultra stable optical clocks, a new quantum computing platform, and searches for new physics which all leverage nuclear spin.
5. The Partonic Structure and Dynamics of Nuclear Matter: Understanding the structure and dynamics of nuclear matter in terms of its fundamental quark and gluon degrees of freedom remains a central goal of nuclear and particle physics. Over the past decades, advances in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), together with experimental progress in deep inelastic scattering, hadron collisions, and relativistic heavy-ion experiments, have significantly deepened our understanding of how nucleons and nuclei emerge from quark–gluon interactions. This invited session brings together leading theorists and experimentalists to review the historical foundations, current status, and future directions of research on partonic structure and dynamics. It begins with a historical perspective on the discovery of quarks and the development of QCD, followed by discussions of modern theoretical frameworks describing nucleon and nuclear structure and emergent phenomena in strongly interacting matter.  Recent experimental results from heavy-ion and high-energy scattering experiments will be highlighted, emphasizing efforts to map the distributions and dynamics of quarks and gluons. The session will also address the convergence of theory and experiment toward a unified picture of QCD matter across energy scales. Finally, prospects at the forthcoming Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) will be discussed, including precision studies of multidimensional nucleon structure and novel QCD phenomena such as gluon saturation.
6. Pushing the boundaries of exotic nuclei with complementary techniques: Measurements using a variety of complementary techniques provide keen insights into how the properties of exotic nuclei evolve with isospin away from the most stable, commonly-occuring nuclei.  These talks will cover recent advances in our understanding of the properties of exotic nuclei derived from different experimental approaches.
7. Recent developments in light hadron spectroscopy: This session will highlight the latest developments in light hadron spectroscopy from experiment, phenomenology and lattice QCD.  One of the overarching goals of the field is to understand the light hybrid meson spectrum, which requires contributions from each of these three perspectives.  This session aims to describe the recent developments in these areas and explore the connections between them.