New insight into nuclear structure from QCD

Abstract

The natural building blocks of atomic nuclei within the framework of QCD are colorless clusters of quarks, with the quantum numbers of nucleons but with internal structure modified by the local mean scalar field. A key parameter of the nucleon in such an approach is the scalar polarizability, which characterizes the response of a nucleon to an applied scalar field. This response leads naturally to 3-, 4- and higher-body effective forces, each proportional to a higher power of the scalar polarizabilty. Recent progress on the important problem of chiral extrapolation of lattice QCD data suggests a way to estimate the scalar polarizability of the nucleon, with initial results consistent with successful phenomenlogical estimates. This may be seen as a first step in the struggle to derive nuclear structure from QCD itself. © 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. Weinheim.