Nucleon

For the Ford concept car, see Ford Nucleon.
An atomic nucleus is shown here as a compact bundle of the two types of nucleons, protons (red) and neutrons (blue). In this picture, the protons and neutrons are shown as distinct, which is the conventional view in chemistry, for example. But in an actual nucleus, as understood by modern nuclear physics, the nucleons are partially delocalized and organize themselves according to the laws of quantum chromodynamics.

In physics and chemistry, a nucleon is either a proton or a neutron, considered in its role as a component of an atomic nucleus. The number of nucleons in a nucleus defines the atom's mass number (nucleon number).

Until the 1960s, nucleons were thought to be elementary particles, not made up of smaller parts. Now they are understood as composite particles, made of three quarks bound together by the strong interaction. The interaction between two or more nucleons is called internucleon interaction or nuclear force, which is also ultimately caused by the strong interaction. (Before the discovery of quarks, the term "strong interaction" referred to just internucleon interactions.)

Nucleons sit at the boundary where particle physics and nuclear physics overlap. Particle physics, particularly quantum chromodynamics, provides the fundamental equations that describe the properties of quarks and of the strong interaction. These equations describe quantitatively how quarks can bind together into protons and neutrons (and all the other hadrons). However, when multiple nucleons are assembled into an atomic nucleus (nuclide), these fundamental equations become too difficult to solve directly (see lattice QCD). Instead, nuclides are studied within nuclear physics, which studies nucleons and their interactions by approximations and models, such as the nuclear shell model. These models can successfully describe nuclide properties, as for example, whether or not a particular nuclide undergoes radioactive decay.

The proton and neutron are in a scheme of categories being at once fermions, hadrons and baryons. The proton carries a positive net charge, and the neutron carries a zero net charge; the proton's mass is only about 0.13% less than the neutron's. Thus, they can be viewed as two states of the same nucleon, and together form an isospin doublet (I = ⁠1/2⁠). In isospin space, neutrons can be transformed into protons and conversely by SU(2) symmetries. These nucleons are acted upon equally by the strong interaction, which is invariant under rotation in isospin space. According to Noether's theorem, isospin is conserved with respect to the strong interaction.[1]: 129–130 

  1. ^ Griffiths, David J. (2008). Introduction to Elementary Particles (2nd revised ed.). WILEY-VCH. ISBN 978-3-527-40601-2.