On Nucleon "Radii"

TL;DR

This paper clarifies that various nucleon radii lack a direct geometric interpretation and introduces the concept of a gluon cloud at high energies affecting nucleon interactions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that nucleon radii do not represent physical size and shows the emergence of a gluon cloud influencing high-energy scattering behavior.

Findings

Nucleon radii do not have a direct geometric meaning.

A gluon cloud appears at high energies, affecting scattering.

Gluon cloud influences the growth of cross-sections.

Abstract

We show that various nucleon "radii" that appear in the literature, e.g."charge", "gravitational", "mass" or "mechanical, do not have a direct geometric meaning and do not give an idea of the physical size of the nucleon. In the framework of the Gribov parton scheme we also show that at high enough energy a gluon cloud appears beyond the valence core of the nucleon and begins to determine the region of interaction of elastic nucleon-nucleon scattering and the growth of its cross-section.