Short distance repulsion in 3 nucleon forces from perturbative QCD

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the short-distance behavior of three-nucleon forces using perturbative QCD, revealing universal repulsive interactions at very short distances due to asymptotic freedom.

Contribution

It provides the first perturbative QCD calculation of three-nucleon force behavior at short distances, demonstrating universal repulsion independent of energy.

Findings

3NF exhibit short-distance repulsion at 1-loop

Repulsion becomes exact in the short distance limit

Behavior is universal, independent of NBS wave function energy

Abstract

We investigate the short distance behavior of 3 nucleon forces (3NF) defined through Nambu--Bethe--Salpeter wave functions, using the operator product expansion(OPE) and calculating anomalous dimensions of 9--quark operators in perturbative QCD. As is the case of NN forces previously considered, we show that 3NF have repulsions at short distance at 1--loop, which becomes exact in the short distance limit thanks to the asymptotic freedom of QCD. Moreover these behaviors are universal in the sense that they do not depend on the energy of the NBS wave function for 3 nucleons.