Nuclear force

The nuclear force (or inter-nucleon potential) is the force between two or more nucleons. It affects the binding of nucleons into nuclei and the scattering of two nucleons. The force depends not only on the distance between two nucleons, but also on their relative velocity, and on their isospin.

Related Topics:
Nucleon - Nuclei - Isospin

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There has been a lot of work on understanding and parametrizing the internucleon potential. The long-range part of this force is of the form of a Yukawa potential due to the exchange of light mesons, such as the pions.

Related Topics:
Yukawa potential - Pion

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Sometimes the nuclear force is called the residual strong force, in contrast to the strong interactions which are now understood to arise from quantum chromodynamics. This phrasing was forced during the 1970s due to a change in paradigm. Before that time, the strong nuclear force refererred to the inter-nucleon potential. After the introduction of the quark model, strong interaction came to mean QCD. Whatever the history, the phrase could be misleading today. Since nucleons have no colour charge, the nuclear force does not directly involve the force carriers of quantum chromodynamics, the gluons.

Related Topics:
Strong interaction - Quantum chromodynamics - Quark model - Colour charge

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