Nucleon viewed as a Borromean Bound-State

TL;DR

This paper presents a continuum quantum field theory analysis showing that the nucleon is a Borromean bound-state, with binding primarily due to non-Abelian QCD effects and diquark correlations, consistent with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a Poincaré covariant framework demonstrating nucleon structure as a Borromean bound-state with specific QCD-driven correlations and provides calculable form factors and distribution amplitudes.

Findings

Nucleon modeled as a Borromean bound-state with diquark correlations.

Calculated flavor-separated Dirac and Pauli form factors.

Predicted parton distribution amplitudes consistent with data.

Abstract

We explain how the emergent phenomenon of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking ensures that Poincar\'e covariant analyses of the three valence-quark scattering problem in continuum quantum field theory yield a picture of the nucleon as a Borromean bound-state, in which binding arises primarily through the sum of two separate contributions. One involves aspects of the non-Abelian character of Quantum Chromodynamics that are expressed in the strong running coupling and generate tight, dynamical color-antitriplet quark-quark correlations in the scalar-isoscalar and pseudovector-isotriplet channels. This attraction is magnified by quark exchange associated with diquark breakup and reformation, which is required in order to ensure that each valence-quark participates in all diquark correlations to the complete extent allowed by its quantum numbers. Combining these effects, we arrive at a properly antisymmetrised Faddeev wave function for the nucleon and calculate, e.g. the flavor-separated versions of the Dirac and Pauli form factors and the proton's leading-twist parton distribution amplitude. We conclude that available data and planned experiments are capable of validating the proposed picture.