Abstract
It is suggested that the nucleon mass arises largely as a self-energy of some primary fermion field through the same mechanism as the appearance of energy gap in the theory of superconductivity. The idea can be put into a mathematical formulation utilizing a generalized Hartree-Fock approximation which regards real nucleons as quasi-particle excitations. We consider a simplified model of nonlinear four-fermion interaction which allows a -gauge group. An interesting consequence of the symmetry is that there arise automatically pseudoscalar zero-mass bound states of nucleon-antinucleon pair which may be regarded as an idealized pion. In addition, massive bound states of nucleon number zero and two are predicted in a simple approximation.
The theory contains two parameters which can be explicitly related to observed nucleon mass and the pion-nucleon coupling constant. Some paradoxical aspects of the theory in connection with the transformation are discussed in detail.
- Received 27 October 1960
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.122.345
©1961 American Physical Society
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Nobel Prize—Particle Physics Gets a Break
Published 14 October 2008
The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes the discovery of symmetry breaking in particle physics, which is an essential concept in modern theories of the fundamental forces.
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