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Particle physics

Hard-core revelations

Nature volume 445, pages 156–157 (2007)Cite this article

Our description of how the atomic nucleus holds together has up to now been entirely empirical. Arduous calculations starting from the theory of the strong nuclear force provide a new way into matter's hard core.

Our quest to understand the force that holds atomic nuclei together has turned out to be a glorious adventure. Along the way we have found quarks, the coloured gluons that mediate the strong nuclear force, and a wonderful theory — quantum chromodynamics, or QCD. This theory has guided experimental research at the high-energy frontier, inspired dreams of 'unified field theories' that would embrace all nature's forces, and allowed theoretical physics to penetrate into the cosmology of the early Universe. In all this, the original problem of understanding nuclear forces has rather fallen by the wayside. That changes with what may come to be seen as a landmark paper by Ishii, Aoki and Hatsuda that has recently appeared on the arXiv preprint server1.

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Figure 1: The nucleon–nucleon potential.
Figure 2: Massive success.

References

  1. Ishii, N., Aoki, S. & Hatsuda, T. preprint available at http://www.arxiv.org/nucl-th/0611096 (2006).

  2. Yukawa, H. Proc. Phys.-Math. Soc. Jpn 17, 48 (1935).

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  1. the Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 5 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA

    Frank Wilczek

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  1. Frank Wilczek
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Wilczek, F. Hard-core revelations. Nature 445, 156–157 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/445156a

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