A nuclear model with explicit mesons

Abstract

A nuclear model is proposed where the nucleons interact by emitting and absorbing mesons, and where the mesons are treated explicitly. A nucleus in this model finds itself in a quantum superposition of states with different number of mesons. Transitions between these states hold the nucleus together. The model---in its simplest incarnation---is applied to the deuteron, where the latter becomes a superposition of a neutron-proton state and a neutron-proton-meson state. Coupling between these states leads to an effective attraction between the nucleons and results in a bound state with negative energy, the deuteron. The model is able to reproduce the accepted values for the binding energy and the charge radius of the deuteron. The model, should it work in practice, has several potential advantages over the existing non-relativistic few-body nuclear models: the reduced number of model parameters, natural inclusion of few-body forces, and natural inclusion of mesonic physics.

References in corpus (5)

• Historical perspective and future prospects for nuclear interactions
• Calculating few-body resonances using an oscillator trap
• Analytic matrix elements with shifted correlated Gaussians
• Bakamjian-Thomas mass operator for the few-nucleon system from chiral dynamics
• Correlated Gaussians and low-discrepancy sequences

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Threshold photoproduction of neutral pions off protons in nuclear model with explicit mesons
• Calculation of low-energy scattering parameters using artificial oscillator trap