RealNucleus submitted to Physics Essays: Standard Model Shaking?

The article Real Nucleus: Nuclear Binding as Dual Confinement without Strong and Weak Force to Physics Essays. The article shows that existence, binding energies and chemical reactions of atomic nuclei can be explained by Coulomb force between protons and electrons, thus without any reference to strong and weak nuclear forces.

The strong force was introduced to explain the existence of nuclei consisting of protons and neutrons by preventing collapse by proton repulsion, which is viewed to be impossible by the presence of neutral neutrons. 

If Coulomb is enough to explain existence of nuclei, then the main role for the strong force vanishes and the question arises if the strong force has any role at all, a question which carries over to the Standard Model with the strong force as fundamental pillar.   

RealNucleus postulates a nucleus to consist in basic form of a core/inner shell system of Z electrons surrounded by an outer shell system of 2Z protons with electrons and protons as non-overlapping unit charge densities of opposite signs but equal mass, interacting ting by Coulomb potentials. 

The mathematical model is thus exactly specified as well as the computation showing binding with energy in accordance with observations. The mathematics is thus fully clear and transparent. What can be questioned is the model as non-overlapping charges densities interacting by Coulomb potentials. But if this is indeed how real physics behaves (and why not?), then the Standard Model is shaking.

History Summary:

1. The nucleus discovered (1911–1919)
-Rutherford nuclear atom — α-scattering reveals a tiny massive charged core. E. Rutherford, "The Scattering of α and β Particles by Matter and the Structure of the Atom," Phil. Mag. 21, 669 (1911).

- The proton — disintegration of nitrogen yields hydrogen nuclei. E. Rutherford, Phil. Mag. 37, 581 (1919).

2. The proton–electron model (≈1920–1932)
The nucleus taken as A protons + (A−Z) electrons (charge Z, mass A). The reigning view through the 1920s — this is the historical picture RealNucleus revives. It foundered on three problems: the nitrogen spin–statistics anomaly, the uncertainty-principle confinement objection (an electron in ~fm gives momenta far above β energies), and nuclear magnetic moments of nuclear- not Bohr-magneton scale.

- Background and the model's difficulties are laid out in the era's review: H. A. Bethe & R. F. Bacher, "Nuclear Physics A: Stationary States of Nuclei," Rev. Mod. Phys. 8, 82 (1936) ("Bethe's Bible").

3. The neutron and the proton–neutron model (1932)
- Neutron discovered. J. Chadwick, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 136, 692 (1932). [already cited]

- Neutron as elementary constituent. D. Iwanenko, "The Neutron Hypothesis," Nature 129, 798 (1932).
- Proton–neutron model with exchange forces / isospin — the foundation of all modern structure theory. W. Heisenberg, "Über den Bau der Atomkerne. I," Z. Phys. 77, 1 (1932) (and parts II, III).

4. The two new forces (1934–1935)
- Weak interaction / β-decay theory — directly relevant to your new §6.3. E. Fermi, "Versuch einer Theorie der β-Strahlen. I," Z. Phys. 88, 161 (1934).

- Strong force / meson exchange. H. Yukawa, Proc. Phys.-Math. Soc. Japan 17, 48 (1935). [already cited]

5. The liquid-drop model (1928–1939)
Nucleus as an incompressible charged droplet — explains binding-energy systematics, fission.
- α-decay tunnelling (droplet precursor). G. Gamow, "Zur Quantentheorie des Atomkernes," Z. Phys. 51, 204 (1928).
- Semi-empirical mass formula. C. F. von Weizsäcker, "Zur Theorie der Kernmassen," Z. Phys. 96, 431 (1935).
- Fission. N. Bohr & J. A. Wheeler, "The Mechanism of Nuclear Fission," Phys. Rev. 56, 426 (1939).

6. The α-cluster model (1937–1938)
Nuclei built from α sub-units — the structural cousin you cite.
- J. A. Wheeler, "Molecular Viewpoints in Nuclear Structure," Phys. Rev. 52, 1083 (1937) (resonating-group).
- L. R. Hafstad & E. Teller, Phys. Rev. 54, 681 (1938). [already cited]

7. The shell model (1949)
Independent nucleons in a mean field + spin–orbit coupling; explains magic numbers. (Nobel 1963.)

- M. Goeppert Mayer, "On Closed Shells in Nuclei. II," Phys. Rev. 75, 1969 (1949).
- O. Haxel, J. H. D. Jensen, H. E. Suess, Phys. Rev. 75, 1766 (1949).

8. Collective and unified models (1950s–1970s)
- Collective (rotations/vibrations) unifying drop + shell. A. Bohr & B. R. Mottelson, Nuclear Structure, Vols. I (1969) & II (1975), Benjamin.
- Interacting Boson Model. A. Arima & F. Iachello, Phys. Rev. Lett. 35, 1069 (1975).

9. The QCD era and ab-initio nuclear theory (1990s–present)
Strong force as residual QCD; nucleons from quarks/gluons; predictive ab initio structure.
- Chiral effective field theory. S. Weinberg, Phys. Lett. B 251, 288 (1990); review E. Epelbaum, H.-W. Hammer, U.-G. Meißner, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 1773 (2009).
- Ab-initio methods (your natural benchmarks): GFMC — S. C. Pieper & R. B. Wiringa, Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 51, 53 (2001); no-core shell model — B. R. Barrett, P. Navrátil, J. P. Vary, Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. 69, 131 (2013).

The through-line for your paper: the nucleus has been modelled as (proton+electron) → (proton+neutron) → droplet →α-clusters → shells → collective → QCD/ab-initio — and RealNucleus deliberately returns to stage 2, but recast as equal-mass Coulomb charge clouds, asking the same Coulomb packing to do the work the strong and weak forces were introduced for.