Nuclear force
Nuclear force
The nuclear force (or nucleon–nucleon interaction or residual strong force) is the force between two or more nucleons. Its quantitative description relies on internucleon potentials with phenomenological constants determined from fitting experimental data. It is responsible for binding protons and neutrons into atomic nuclei. The energy released by such binding causes the masses of nuclei to be less than the total mass of the protons and neutrons which form them; this is the energy used in nuclear power and nuclear weapons.[1][2] The force is powerfully attractive between nucleons at distances of about 1 femtometer (fm) between their centers, but rapidly decreases to insignificance at distances beyond about 2.5 fm. At very short distances less than 0.7 fm, it becomes repulsive, and is responsible for the physical size of nuclei, since the nucleons can come no closer than the force allows.
The nuclear force is now understood as a residual effect of the even more powerful strong force, or strong interaction, which is the attractive force that binds particles called quarks together, to form the nucleons themselves. This more powerful force is mediated by particles called gluons, which are a type of gauge boson. Gluons hold quarks together with a force like that of electric charge, but of far greater power.
