A Speculative Description of the Two-Nucleon Interaction

The nucleon-nucleon potential is deduced in the framework of the nonrelativistic meson exchange theory starting from a well-defined nucleon model. The nucleon model is built up as the synthesis of a Pais-Uhlenbeck scheme (restricted to a homogeneous sixth-order Klein-Gordon equation) and a nonlinear equation governing the radial dependence of the pion field. The model predicts the existence of a mass sequence of heavy bosons which characterize the density function and consequently the spatially extended nature of the nucleon. It has been proved that the special form of the nonlinearity gives rise to solitonic effects and that the source is confined within a sort of Yukawian soliton whose r.m.s. radius is about 3/2 the Compton wavelength of the nucleon. This property establishes an upper limit for the r.m.s. radius of the source. The role of a set of four pseudoscalar mesons and that of a scalar one are discussed. The preliminary results of the implications concerning the nucleon-nucleon potential are promising in view of future, more detailed, investigations.