Letter to the Editor

RETRACTED ARTICLE: On the unification of nuclear-structure theory: A response to Bortignon and Broglia

Department of Informatics, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan

^* e-mail: cook@res.kutc.kansai-u.ac.jp

Received: 25 July 2016
Accepted: 28 July 2016
Published online: 9 September 2016

Abstract

Nuclear-structure theory is unusual among the diverse fields of quantum physics. Although it provides a coherent description of all known isotopes on the basis of a quantum-mechanical understanding of nucleon states, nevertheless, in the absence of a fundamental theory of the nuclear force acting between nucleons, the prediction of all ground-state and excited-state nuclear binding energies is inherently semi-empirical. I suggest that progress can be made by returning to the foundational work of Eugene Wigner from 1937, where the mathematical symmetries of nucleon states were first defined. Those symmetries were later successfully exploited in the development of the independent-particle model ( IPM ∼ shell model , but the geometrical implications noted by Wigner were neglected. Here I review how the quantum-mechanical, but remarkably easy-to-understand geometrical interpretation of the IPM provides constraints on the parametrization of the nuclear force. The proposed “geometrical IPM” indicates a way forward toward the unification of nuclear-structure theory that Bortignon and Broglia have called for.