Neutrons interact more strongly than protons

Enrique Ruiz Arriola (Granada)

The strong coupling constant at the hadronic level par excellence is the pion-nucleon-nucleon coupling constant. I discuss how from a scrupulous statistical analysis of 8000 proton-proton and neutron-proton scattering data below and above pion production threshold selected by the Granada group taking into account all known effects one can discern its value with the the highest known precision so that charge symmetry breaking effects can for the first time be disentangled when NN data are bootstrapped.

A similar analysis can be carried out for the chiral constants c₁, c₃, c₄ which appear both in pion-nucleon scattering at threshold as well as in the two-pion-exchange potential determined from chiral perturbation theory. The implications for nuclear physics are also discussed.

(Seminarraum II)