Vector Mesons and Nucleon-Nucleon Potentials

Abstract

The role of the $\pi -\pi$ resonances in the nucleon-nucleon force is considered on a model which treats these resonances as particle exchanges. The nucleon form factors are used to obtain the resonance parameters; thus the coupling constant of the "particles" to the nucleon are the only free parameters. It is found that the qualitative features of the central, spin-orbit, and tensor potentials in all states can be reproduced, except that the central repulsive core has too long a range. These results suggest that $\pi -\pi$ effects dominate rather than supplement the usual uncorrelated $2\pi$, $3\pi$ contribution to the nucleon-nucleon force.