Constituent Quark Model and nucleon-Nucleon Potentials

TL;DR

This paper derives nucleon-nucleon potentials from meson-exchange between quarks within a constituent quark model, aligning quark-level interactions with phenomenological nucleon-nucleon vertices and applying the results to neutron star matter.

Contribution

It provides a derivation of NN potentials from quark-meson interactions using a semi-relativistic constituent quark model with specific couplings and form factors, linking quark interactions to phenomenological potentials.

Findings

Quark-quark-meson interactions reproduce NN vertex ratios.

Additional couplings are needed for scalar, vector, and axial-vector mesons.

Form factors and momentum correlations prevent spurious terms.

Abstract

In these notes, while focusing on the meson-nucleon vertices, we give a derivation of the nucleon-nucleon 9NN) potentials from meson-exchange between quarks. To establish such a relation the quark-quark-meson (QQM) interactions are properly defined. Hitherto, the coefficients in the Pauli-spinor expansion of the meson-nucleon-nucleon (NNM) vertices are equated with those of the QQM-vertices. In these notes we employ the description of the nucleon with Dirac-spinors in the SU(6) semi-relativistic "constituent" quark-model (CQM) as formulated by LeYouanc, et al. It appears that the constituent quark model with $m_q= M_N/3$, is able to produce the same ratio's for the central-, spin-spin-, tensor-, spin-orbit-, and quadratic-spin-orbit Pauli-invariants as in the phenomenological NNM-vertices. In order to achieve this, the scalar-, magnetic-vector, and axial-vector interactions require, besides the standard ones, an extra coupling to the quarks without the introduction of new parameters. in the case of the axial-vector mesons an extra coupling to the quarks is necessary, which is related to the quark orbital angular momentum contribution to the nucleon spin. Furthermore, a momentum correlation between the quark that is coupled to the meson and the remaining quark pair, and a (gaussian) QQM form factor, are necessary to avoid "spurious" terms. From these results we have obtained a formulation of the QQ-interactions which is directly related to the NN extended-soft-core (ESC) interactions. This has been applied to mixed quark-nuclear matter in a study of (heavy) neutron stars.