Continuation and termination of the secondary finite-yield node branch

Determine whether the secondary higher-$q_T$ finite-yield crossing branch in the $M=3$ OAM channel moves beyond the scanned $q_T$ range, merges with another solution, or terminates as the collinear beam--target offset $B_{\rm ax}$ increases.

Background

The paper studies finite-yield zeros of the normalized elliptic response SM=DM−CMS_M=D_M-C_M for localized Bessel--Gaussian OAM analyzers in diffractive dijet deep inelastic scattering. In the M=3M=3 channel, the response can vanish while the baseline diffractive weight remains nonzero, producing a projection node generated by cancellation between the direct response and the normalization contribution.

When the beam--target offset is varied in the collinear geometry, the authors identify a primary, lowest-qTq_T node branch that migrates substantially. They also find a secondary higher-qTq_T crossing for small offsets, approximately qT∗≃0.77–0.78q_T^\ast\simeq0.77\text{--}0.78 GeV for Bax≲0.6B_{\rm ax}\lesssim0.6 GeV. The secondary branch has a comparatively small baseline weight, and its behavior at larger offsets is not resolved by the reported scan, leaving its continuation, merger, or termination as an explicit unresolved question.

References

Determining whether this branch moves beyond the present $q_T$ range, merges with another solution, or terminates as the offset increases would require an extended high-$q_T$ scan.

— Orbital Angular Momentum as a Transverse Probe of Elliptic Small-$x$ Gluon Tomography  (2608.22744 - Kou et al., 24 Aug 2026) in Section 4.5, “Collinear offset dependence” (Subsection \ref{subsec:alignment-dependence})

A completion would need dynamics enforcing a form-factor sum rule, $F_D(q)\approx0$ over the screened band, whose controlled breaking generates the second node; we do not construct one, and establish the phenomenology conditional on this screening.

— Dark Diffraction at LZ from a Screened Neutral Composite Baryon  (2609.25723 - Jung et al., 22 Sep 2026) in Section “A minimal realization”