Probing the core of the strong nuclear interaction
Abstract
The strong nuclear interaction between nucleons (protons and neutrons) is the effective force that holds the atomic nucleus together. This force stems from fundamental interactions between quarks and gluons (the constituents of nucleons) that are described by the equations of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). However, as these equations cannot be solved directly, physicists resort to describing nuclear interactions using effective models that are well constrained at typical inter-nucleon distances in nuclei but not at shorter distances. This limits our ability to describe high-density nuclear matter such as in the cores of neutron stars. Here we use high-energy electron scattering measurements that isolate nucleon pairs in short-distance, high-momentum configurations thereby accessing a kinematical regime that has not been previously explored by experiments, corresponding to relative momenta above 400 MeV/c. As the relative momentum between two nucleons increases and their separation thereby decreases, we observe a transition from a spin-dependent tensor-force to a predominantly spin-independent scalar-force. These results demonstrate the power of using such measurements to study the nuclear interaction at short-distances and also support the use of point-like nucleons with two- and three-body effective interactions to describe nuclear systems up to densities several times higher than the central density of atomic nuclei.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2004.11221,
title = {Probing the core of the strong nuclear interaction},
author = {A. Schmidt and J. R. Pybus and R. Weiss and E. P. Segarra and A. Hrnjic and A. Denniston and O. Hen and E. Piasetzky and L. B. Weinstein and N. Barnea and M. Strikman and A. Larionov and D. Higinbotham and S. Adhikari and M. Amaryan and G. Angelini and G. Asryan and H. Atac and H. Avakian and C. Ayerbe Gayoso and L. Baashen and L. Barion and M. Bashkanov and M. Battaglieri and A. Beck and I. Bedlinskiy and F. Benmokhtar and A. Bianconi and A. S. Biselli and F. Bossu and S. Biarinov and W. J. Briscoe and W. Brooks and V. D. Burkert and F. Cao and D. S. Carman and J. C. Carvajal and A. Celentano and P. Chatagnon and T. Chetry and G. Ciullo and L. Clark and E. Cohen and P. L. Cole and M. Contalbrigo and V. Crede and R. Cruz-Torres and A. D'Angelo and N. Dashyan and R. De Vita and E. De Sanctis and M. Defurne and A. Deur and S. Diehl and C. Djalali and M. Duer and M. Dugger and R. Dupre and H. Egiyan and M. Ehrhart and A. El Alaoui and L. El Fassi and P. Eugenio and A. Filippi and T. A. Forest and G. Gavalian and S. Gilad and G. P. Gilfoyle and K. L. Giovanetti and F. X. Girod and C. Giuseppe and D. I. Glazier and E. Golovatch and R. W. Gothe and K. A. Griffioen and L. Guo and K. Hafidi and H. Hakobyan and C. Hanretty and N. Harrison and M. Hattawy and F. Hauenstein and T. B. Hayward and K. Hicks and M. Holtrop and Y. Ilieva and I. Illari and D. Ireland and B. S. Ishkanov and E. L. Isupov and D. Jenkins and H. S. Jo and K. Joo and D. Keller and M. Khachatryan and A. Khanal and M. Khandaker and C. W. Kim and W. Kim and F. J. Klein and I. Korover and V. Kubarovsky and L. Lanza and M. Leali and P. Lenisa and I. J. D. MacGregor and D. Marchand and N. Markov and L. Marsicano and V. Mascagna and S. May-Tal Beck and B. McKinnon and M. Mirazita and V. Mokeev and C. Munoz Camacho and B. Mustapha and P. Nadel-Turonski and S. Nanda and S. Niccolai and G. Niculescu and M. Osipenko and A. I. Ostrovidov and M. Paolone and L. L. Pappalardo and R. Paremuzyan and K. Park and E. Pasyuk and M. Patsyuk and W. Phelps and O. Pogorelko and J. W. Price and Y. Prok and D. Protopopescu and M. Ripani and D. Riser and A. Rizzo and G. Rosner and P. Rossi and F. Sabatie and C. Salgado and B. Schmookler and R. A. Schumacher and Y. G. Sharabian and U. Shrestha and Iu. Skorodumina and D. Sokhan and O. Soto and N. Sparveris and S. Stepanyan and I. I. Strakovsky and S. Strauch and J. A. Tan and N. Tyler and M. Ungaro and L. Venturelli and H. Voskanyan and E. Voutier and R. Wang and D. P. Watts and X. Wei and M. H. Wood and N. Zachariou and J. Zhang and Z. W. Zhao and X. Zheng},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.11221},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
Total 26 pages, 13 figures. Main text: 8 pages, 3 figures. Methods section: 6 pages. Extended Data: 8 figures, 1 table. Supplementary Materials: 8 pages, 2 figures