English

Quark Coulomb Interactions and the Mass Difference of Mirror Nuclei

Nuclear Theory 2009-11-06 v1 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We study the Okamoto-Nolen-Schiffer (ONS) anomaly in the binding energy of mirror nuclei at high density by adding a single neutron or proton to a quark gluon plasma. In this high-density limit we find an anomaly equal to two-thirds of the Coulomb exchange energy of a proton. This effect is dominated by quark electromagnetic interactions---rather than by the up-down quark mass difference. At normal density we calculate the Coulomb energy of neutron matter using a string-flip quark model. We find a nonzero Coulomb energy because of the neutron's charged constituents. This effect could make a significant contribution to the ONS anomaly.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.nucl-th/0002005,
  title  = {Quark Coulomb Interactions and the Mass Difference of Mirror Nuclei},
  author = {C. J. Horowitz and J. Piekarewicz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:nucl-th/0002005},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, 2 figs. sub. to Phys. Rev. Lett