A quantitative estimate of the effect of the repulsion of protons for each other would be very valuable. The potential energy due the electrostatic force is a simple known function of the separation of protons. Therefore an estimate of the effect on binding energy of the repulsion of protons could be converted into information of the separation distance of protons.

One plausible method of isolating the effect of the electrostatic repulsion between protons is to consider two nuclides that differ only in that one has a proton where the other has a neutron. For example, consider the triteron (one proton and two neutrons) and the He3 nuclide (two protons and one neutron). The binding energy of the triteron is 8.48 million electron volts (MeV), whereas that of He3 is 7.76 MeV. The difference might be ascribed to the charge of the second proton. The situation is a bit more complicated. He3 has a proton-proton spin pair where the triteron has a neutron-neutron spin pair. The binding energies of the various spin pairs might not be the same.

In order to avoid the problem of possible differences in the binding energy effects of pair formation consider a proton or a neutron being added to a core nuclide in which all of the nucleons are paired up. Such a core nuclide is one that could be made up of alpha particles or something like alpha particles. For examples, the nuclides with four neutrons and four protons, the Be8 nuclide. Such nuclides will be called alpha nuclides.

The alpha nuclides may contain actual alpha particles or chains of neutrons and protons in which there are modules involving two neutrons and two protons.

Such chains arise because any nucleon can form only one pair with a nucleon of the same type and only one pair with a nucleon of the opposite type. An alpha module is of the form:

An alpha particle is just a special case of an alpha module:

For more on this see Quasi Alpha Particles.

The following table illustrates such a construction.

The plot of the difference in binding energies plotted versus the number of alpha modules is shown below.

The number of alpha modules serves as a proxy for the size of the nuclide. There seems to be a decreasing marginal effect of additional alpha modules. This can be illustrated by plotting the increment in the difference in binding energy versus the number of alphas, as shown below.

There appears to a general decline in the incremental effect of an additional alpha module with the size of the nuclide, but with some sort of cycle.

The same construction was carried out for two neutrons and two protons; and likewise for three and four of the nucleons. The results are shown below.

The relationships are roughly linear with respect to the number of alpha modules, with slightly declining slopes. The relationships in terms of the number of exchanged nucleons also seem to be linear. This is tested below.

Interpretation of the Differences in Binding Energies

Although the effect of a possible difference in the binding energy due to the formation of neutron and proton spin pairs is eliminated for K=1 it could show up in the results for K>1.

The linearity of the relation between the binding energy difference and K then is evidence that there is negligible difference for the effect of the formation of neutron-neutron and proton-proton spin pairs.

There is however another consideration in the interpretation of the differences. Previous studies indicate that neutrons repel neutrons and protons repel protons through the strong force as well as the electrostatic force. A neutron is attracted to a proton and it is this force that holds a nucleus together.

The forces between nucleons can be accounted for as a result of neutrons and protons having a nucleonic (strong force) charge. The nucleonic charge of a neutron is not only opposite in sign from that of a proton but smaller in magnitude.

Let the nucleonic of a proton be designated as +1 and that of a neutron as −q. Previous studies have found q to be 2/3 but for now q will be left general.

Suppose two particles have nucleonic charges of q₁ and q₂, where these can be positive or negative. The force between the particles is then proportional to q₁q₂. If this product is positive then the force is a repulsion and if it is negative the force is an attraction. Likewise the potential energy for the two particles is proportional to the product of the nucleonic charges. This then applies to the binding energy.

The binding energy due to the strong force repulsion of two neutrons is then of the form −Hq²F(s), where H is the constant for the strong force and F(s) is a function of the separation distance s. On the other hand, the binding energy due to the attraction between a neutron and proton is +HqF(s). The binding energy due to the interaction of two protons is then −(HF(s)+J/s), where J is the constant for electrostatic attraction.

The binding energy due to the interaction of a proton with an alpha module is then

BE_pα = −2HF(s) + 2HqF(s) − 2J/s
and hence
BE_pα = −[2H(1−q)F(s) + 2J/s]

The binding energy due to the interaction of a neutron with an alpha module is

BE_nα = −2Hq²F(s) + 2HqF(s)
BE_nα = −2Hq(1−q)F(s)

The difference Δ of the neutron interaction less the proton interaction is then

Δ = 2H(1−q²)F(s) + J/s

This is for one alpha module and one nucleon exchanged. For α alpha modules and K nucleons exchanged the difference would be αKΔ.

The simple difference does not isolate the electrostatic interaction. That requires a more sophisticated manipulation of the data.

The Incremental Binding Energies of Additional Alpha Modules

Consider the increments in binding energy for additional alpha modules. Such increments represents the interaction of an additional alpha module with the other alpha module and with the single nucleon. From the previous table these are:

The graph of the two series of increments is quite remarkable.

The two curves nearly match but always the value for the additional proton is below the value for the additional neutron. Also note that the numbers of alpha modules after which the incremental binding energy drops off sharply are 3, 7 and 14. These numbers correspond to 6, 14 and 28 nucleons, each being a magic number representing the filling of a shell.

The incremental binding energies may be considered to be of the forms

IBE_nα = M − 2Hq(1−q)F(s)
IBE_pα = M − [2H(1−q)F(s) + 2J/s]

where M is the binding energy resulting from the interaction of an additional alpha modules with the other alpha modules in the nuclide.

If the second equation is multiplied by q and subtracted from the first, the result is:

IBE_nα−q*IBE_pα = (1−q)M + 2qJ/s

Dividing this series by (1-q) gives a series equal to M+2(q/(1-q))J/s. Now the problem is to find the values of M for the various numbers of alpha modules. Those values are available from the incremental binding energies of the alpha modules in the alpha nuclides. They are given in the table below along with the series for M+2(q/(1-q))J/s where q=2/3 and hence q/(1-q)=2.

Below is the graph of the incremental binding energies of alpha modules in alpha nuclides and that amount plus a term that is proportional to the electrostatic repulsion between the additional proton and the protons in the alpha modules.

The difference is equal to 4J/s. The relation between separation distance and potential energy is as follows:

s (in fermi) = 1.44/PE (in Mev)

Based on this formula and the binding energies for J/s found the distances between the proton added to the alpha nuclides and the last alpha modules to be added are as shown.

The extremes are implausible and even the lowest levels are surprisingly high, but plausible. Thus it was shown that the theory could be used to obtain estimates of the spacing of nucleons in nuclei.

(To be continued.)