The Deuterium Nucleus Spin Question

[TriTertButoxy]

Ok, I have a question that's really irritating me.

I am trying to explain why deuterium's nucleus has a spin of 1.

By the addition of angular mometum of the individual nucleons (1 proton and 1 neutron) that make up the deuterium nucleus, there are three possible choices (from the triangle inequality theorem): 0, 1/2, and 1.

I can rule out 1/2 because that would imply that the z-component is either -1/2 or +1/2... something I can't do by adding the z-components of the angular momentum of the individual nucleons (you can only get 0 or 1).

But I can't seem to rule out the possibility of spin-0 deuterium nucleus.

Any thoughts?

 

[Meir Achuz]

It de[emds on the properties of the nuclear force. The n-p attraction is slightly stronger in the spin 1 state than in the spin zero state. The theoretical reason for this has to do with the exchange of pions between the n and the p.