Assessment of Triton Potential Energy

Abstract

An assessment is made of the dominant features contributing to the triton potential energy, with the objective of understanding qualitatively their origins and sensitivities. Relativistic effects, short-range repulsion, and OPEP dominance are discussed. A determination of the importance of various regions of nucleon-nucleon separation is made numerically.

ΔI = 1 axial-vector mixing and charge symmetry breaking

“…[1] (which we follow by parameterizing isospin violation by ǫ ∼ 0.3). The coupling constant g x of this zero-range Lagrangian is natural if g x /m x ∼ 1/f π [1,46]. Thus g ρNN /m ρ ≃ 0.60/f π is nearly the same as g a 1 NN /m A ≃ 0.70/f π from Eq.…”

Dimensional Power Counting in Nuclei

“…We have already argued that T ∼ Q 2 CT Λ per nucleon, where C T ∼ 1 and we have used M N ∼ Λ. For the triton, V π ∼ −15 MeV/pair and T ∼ 15 MeV/nucleon [24]. For the α particle both energies are somewhat larger.…”

“…and (v/c) 2 is satisfyingly small on average. In order to conform to a more standard notation, we will use Q (∼ m π ) rather than p. We will see later that in processes involving pions this is indeed a typical scale [24]. At this point a little history is instructive.…”