Would baryons and their antiparticles interact via the strong interaction?

Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the interactions between baryons and their antiparticles via the strong interaction, specifically exploring the nature of the potential involved, including Yukawa potentials and meson exchanges. Participants examine theoretical models and approximations related to these interactions, considering both baryon-baryon and baryon-antibaryon scenarios.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants propose that the potential between a baryon and its antiparticle may be equal in magnitude but opposite in sign compared to the potential between two baryons.
  • Others argue that the interactions are more complex, noting that the strong interaction between quark-antiquark pairs is attractive, while quark-quark interactions can be repulsive.
  • A participant discusses the use of a Yukawa potential to approximate interactions and suggests that the potential could be analyzed by fixing baryons in static positions to evaluate the resulting energy.
  • There is a consideration of how meson exchanges influence the nature of the interaction, with the quantum numbers of mesons determining whether the interaction is repulsive or attractive.
  • One participant is researching the oscillation suppression of neutron-antineutron pairs and seeks to understand how to modify existing models of neutron-neutron interactions to reflect neutron-antineutron interactions.
  • References to historical models, such as the Sakata model, are made, suggesting that baryon-antibaryon interactions may exhibit characteristics opposite to those of baryon-baryon interactions.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the nature of the potentials involved, with some suggesting similarities in magnitude and sign between baryon-antibaryon and baryon-baryon interactions, while others highlight the complexities and nuances that may lead to different behaviors. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the exact nature of these interactions.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include the reliance on non-relativistic approximations and the potential dependence on specific definitions of the interactions. The discussion also touches on unresolved mathematical steps in the modeling of these interactions.

K.J.Healey
Messages
622
Reaction score
0
And would the potential be equal in magnitude yet opposite in sign?

If you were to approximate a yukawa potential for some baryon and had it "near" its antiparticle, what would the potential look like. The same for a baryon and another baryon but opposite?

This would just be like a residual strong interaction right? A quick approximation maybe being a light meson exchange?
Thanks!
 
Physics news on Phys.org
K.J.Healey said:
And would the potential be equal in magnitude yet opposite in sign?
It took me a while to realize what was the question about ! In hadronic physics, we are not used to considering particles vs antiparticles, but more in terms of multiplets of similar particles, where it so happens that the multiplets connect particles with their antiparticles. One of the reasons QCD was quickly realized to be an excellent candidate for strong interactions is that there is an attractive force in the quark-antiquark and three-quark sectors, but repulsive in the quark-quark sector. So things are not as simple as "if you turn a particle into its antiparticle, just reverse the force". However, particles and antiparticles do interact via strong interaction.
If you were to approximate a yukawa potential for some baryon and had it "near" its antiparticle, what would the potential look like. The same for a baryon and another baryon but opposite?
The very notion of potential works only in non-relativistic physics, so bearing that in mind, we need to do something like fixing our baryons in static positions at a given distance from one another and the potential would be the resulting energy of the system. It may or may not be relevant to the dynamics, but we can do that. Then most likely the potential will remain essentially the same. Reason is partly answered
This would just be like a residual strong interaction right? A quick approximation maybe being a light meson exchange?
we would indeed have meson exchanges between our static colorless sources. The quantum numbers of those mesons will determine whether the interaction is repulsive or attractive, their mass will determine the range of static interaction. So if you take one of your baryons and change it into another one in your multiplet (like its antibaryon) you will need to exchange other mesons but they will still be in the same multiplet of mesons (not the same multiplet as your baryons). Say at short distances you will have a similar more massive vector repulsion and at long distance you will have a less massive scalar attraction (masses are almost degenerate in a given multiplet).
 
Last edited:
Well, I'm not sure how detailed I should be since I'm supposed to be researching this on my own, but I consider asking questions here part of research.

Now, some of you may have the answer right away, but that not what I want, I really want to make sure I understand this and how to go about figuring it out. Heres the scenario:

Non relativistic is fine.
I'm trying calculate an oscillation suppression of a nnbar in the presence of other neutrons via the strong interaction with a very naive model. I've read a few articles that give a decent method of approximating the residual-strong interaction between nucleons in a nucleus by using a sum of a heavy and a light meson exchange. They have all the data fitted so I have actual values for the coupling contants + masses.
While I'm not doing these calculations for nuclei, they are of the same interaction distance.
I guess I'm asking, if I have this fit of a sum of two meson exchange potentials for a neutron-neutron interaction (approx), what can I do to it (the potential) to make it reflect the interaction (approx) of a neutron-antineutron?

Is it equal in magnitude, yet opposite in sign? If so then I know what I have to do, just toss it in the Hamiltonian, and calculate he oscillation freq. {{E+V, dm},{dm,E-V}} or something similar.

Or is it completely different?

I'm trying to figure out how the strong interaction behaves for the antiparticle part of a nnbar state.
 
Last edited:
K.J.Healey said:
And would the potential be equal in magnitude yet opposite in sign?

If you were to approximate a yukawa potential for some baryon and had it "near" its antiparticle, what would the potential look like. The same for a baryon and another baryon but opposite?

I also thought about this question. I found a couple of references that might be useful:

[1] M.-L. Yan, S. Li, B. Wu, B.-Q. Ma, Baryonium with a phenomenological
skyrmion-type potential. http://www.arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0405087v4

[2] J.M. Richard, Historical Survey of the Quasi-Nuclear Baryonium,
http://arxiv.org/abs/nucl-th/9906006v1

For example, if you change the sign of the nucleon-antinucleon potential shown in fig 1. of [1] you'll get something similar to the nucleon-nucleon potential as usually drawn in textbooks. Experimental studies of baryon-antibaryon potentials are difficult, because they tend to annihilate.

Another evidence for the opposite character of baryon-baryon and baryon-antibaryon potentials may come from the Sakata model, in which mesons are represented as nucleon-antinucleon bound states and baryons are composites of two nucleons and one antinucleon. This model was quite popular in the end of 1950's. Then it was replaced by the quark model and (almost) forgotten. In the paper

K. Matumoto, S. Sawada, Y. Sumi, M. Yonezawa, "Mass formula in the
Sakata model" Progr. Theor. Phys. Suppl. 19 (1961), 66

masses of (then known) mesons and baryons were fitted in the Sakata model, and the conclusion was that interaction energy nucleon-antinucleon has equal magnitude but opposite sign wrt the interaction energy nucleon-nucleon.

Eugene.
 

Similar threads

  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
2K
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
3K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
3K
  • · Replies 6 ·
Replies
6
Views
3K
Replies
2
Views
3K
  • · Replies 9 ·
Replies
9
Views
9K
  • · Replies 46 ·
2
Replies
46
Views
8K
Replies
5
Views
3K
  • · Replies 12 ·
Replies
12
Views
3K
  • · Replies 18 ·
Replies
18
Views
4K