Abstract
How does nature hold together protons and neutrons to form the wide variety of complex nuclei in the Universe? Describing many-nucleon systems from the fundamental theory of quantum chromodynamics has been the greatest challenge in answering this question. The chiral effective field theory description of the nuclear force now makes this possible but requires certain parameters that are not uniquely determined. Defining the nuclear force needs identification of observables sensitive to the different parametrizations. From a measurement of proton elastic scattering on at TRIUMF and ab initio nuclear reaction calculations, we show that the shape and magnitude of the measured differential cross section is strongly sensitive to the nuclear force prescription.
- Received 8 March 2017
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.262502
© 2017 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Viewpoint
Scattering Experiments Tease Out the Strong Force
Published 28 June 2017
The scattering of protons from a carbon isotope can be used to test models of the strong force.
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