In the Classroom

Nuclear Stability and Nucleon-Nucleon Interactions in Introductory and General Chemistry Textbooks
Anthony Millevolte Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin Colleges-Barron County, Rice Lake, Wisconsin 54868 anthony.millevolte@uwc.edu

Most general and introductory chemistry textbooks fail to address a fundamental structural feature of atoms larger than hydrogen: the stability of the nucleus. Although authors are quick to invoke electrostatic forces in accounting for the attraction of electrons to the nucleus, few authors explain why the protons in a densely packed nucleus remain in close contact with each other. This omission creates a substantial opportunity for student misunderstanding. If electrostatic forces are used to account for the structure of matter, then an explanation for why protons can be so tightly clustered together in the nucleus is needed. Indeed, Ernest Rutherford and other scientists took up this challenge shortly after discovering the nucleus with its tremendous charge density; they postulated the existence of nuclear electrons that acted to hold the positively charged bodies in the nucleus together (1). This widely held nuclear electron hypothesis was eventually discarded following Chadwick's discovery of the neutron (2).1 Introductory and general chemistry students deserve at least a brief account for the stability of the nucleus, lest they conclude that electrostatic interactions are somehow intermittent or that chemists have a poor grasp of physics. A minimalist textbook or classroom introduction to atomic structure should at least acknowledge that repulsive electrostatic forces exist between the protons in a nucleus and that a different and much stronger force of attraction exists between nucleons in the nucleus. In a preliminary introduction to the structure of matter, there is no need to provide a more elaborate explanation than this. However, in later discussions of nuclear transformations and nuclide stability, it may be worthwhile to offer a more thorough description of nuclear structure and intranuclear forces (3, 4). For example, as part of my classroom introduction to nuclear science in second-semester general chemistry, I provide my students with a brief description of the strong attractive force to help account for the stability of some nuclei and for the instability of others. I also divulge to the students information known to physicists for more than 40 years: that unlike the electron, the proton and neutron are not fundamental particles of matter but are composite structures, each made up of three quarks. Whereas it is my intent to limit both of these digressions to a few minutes, quite often interested students challenge me with questions that go considerably beyond the simplified models I introduce to them. The balance of this article is written for two purposes: (i) to help authors address the omissions and misconceptions found in existing textbooks
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and (ii) to prepare chemistry instructors for the range of questions they invite from their students when they choose to broach these subjects in class. The Nuclear Strong Force For reasons that will become apparent, the term strong force is somewhat problematic. For the purpose of this article, I will use the term nuclear strong force to describe the strong attractive force that exists between nucleons. This nuclear strong force is independent of charge and exists between protons and protons, between protons and neutrons, and between neutrons and neutrons. The magnitude of the nuclear strong force between adjacent nucleons is approximately 100 times stronger than the corresponding electrostatic force. However, the nuclear strong force is not a fundamental force but is a secondary interaction that arises between the constituent quarks in adjacent nucleons. Nucleon Structure The quark model for nucleons is useful for explaining the origin of the nuclear strong force, for explaining the similarities and differences between the proton and the neutron, and for exposing STEM2 students to a scale of matter below that of the nucleons. Moreover, it is quite accessible to introductory students. A nucleon is composed of three quarks that are tightly bound together by a force far stronger than the nuclear strong force. The proton is composed of two up quarks, u, and one down quark, d. The neutron is composed of one up quark and two down quarks:

An up quark has a charge of 2/3 and a down quark a charge of -1/3; the quark compositions thus accounting for the total charge on the proton and the neutron. The fundamental force of nature that binds quarks together within a nucleon has been known alternatively as the strong force, the strong interaction, the chromodynamic force, or the color force. For the purpose of this article, I will refer to this primary interquark force as the color force to clearly distinguish it from

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In the Classroom

the weaker nuclear strong force that exists between nucleons. Though free quarks have never been observed, physicists view them as more than mere hypothetical entities because of the broad range of phenomena they are able to account for:3
The number of successful explanations and predictions in terms of the theory of quark constituency has proved to be too compelling not to accept... ...more `direct' indirect evidence in favor of quarks has been obtained by, of all things, repeating what Rutherford did to discover the atomic nucleus in the first place back in 1911... (5)

for the color charges to cancel. One can imagine three different possibilities for this:

Whereas most of the color force is manifested between the quarks within a nucleon, there are secondary and weaker interactions between the quarks in one nucleon with quarks in another; these secondary interactions are what give rise to the nuclear strong force. So, as strong as the nuclear strong force between nucleons is, it is only a pale shadow of this `really strong force' between quarks in the same nucleon (6). This really strong force or color force is a fundamental force of nature with the same standing as the weak, gravitational, and electromagnetic forces.4 In contrast, the nuclear strong force between nucleons is a much weaker interaction and is closely analogous to the London force that exists between different molecules. Just as the London force is a secondary manifestation of the underlying and much stronger electrostatic force, the nuclear strong force is a secondary manifestation of the underlying, fundamental color force. The analogy between London forces and the nuclear strong force also holds in the way that these secondary interactions drop off quickly with distance, r: the strength of the London force is proportional to r-6 and the range of the nuclear strong force is limited to interactions between immediately adjacent nucleons (7). Because the repulsive electrostatic interactions between protons act over a much greater distance than the attractive nuclear strong force interactions between nucleons, there is an upper limit to the number of protons that can exist in a nucleus. The Color Force The color force between the quarks in a nucleon is a consequence of the opposing attributes of the three quarks. These attributes are analogous to the positive and negative qualities that give rise to the electrostatic force, but instead of having a 2-fold oppositeness as is found in electrostatics and electromagnetism, the color force is a manifestation of a 3-fold oppositeness. It is as though the opposing quark attributes could be represented by the corners of an equilateral triangle. In an imaginative analogy, these 3-fold opposing attributes were dubbed blue, green, and red, because a combination of these three colors of light yields white light (which is analogous to a zero charge for this attribute). For a nucleon to exist, its total color charge (not electrostatic charge) must be neutral.5 It is important to note that the notion of color in this model has no physical relationship to the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Rather, the perceptual color wheel of light acts an analogy and serves as a nonmathematical vector plane where blue, green, and red light add up to white light (or zero). For example, the proton is composed of two up quarks and one down quark. Each of these quarks can exist with one of the different color charges: blue, green, or red. So, of the three quarks in the proton, one quark needs to be blue, one green, and one red

The result in all three cases is indistinguishable, and the total color charge for the nucleon is zero. The color force between the quarks in a nucleon is different from electromagnetism and gravity in that the strength of the color force increases as the distance between the quarks increases; thus, the quarks behave as though they are tethered to each other.6 The quarks in a nucleon are often described as though they are particles moving about freely within an elastic bag. Indeed, the nucleons are composed mainly of empty space taken up by the motion of pointlike quarks in much the same way that the volume of an atom is defined by its rarified cloud of point like electrons. Nuclear Structure Nuclear scientists during the 1930s successfully modeled the nucleus as a homogeneous liquid drop, while other researchers worked toward uncovering an underlying nucleon structure for the nucleus. These latter scientists focused their attention on the patterns of nuclear stability that began to emerge as an increasing number of nuclides were discovered and characterized in the 1930s and 1940s. They soon noted that nuclei possessing magic numbers of protons or neutrons were particularly stable.7 In 1948, Marie Goeppert Mayer published an article where she summarized the extensive evidence that supported an underlying shell structure for the nucleus (8). Her conclusion paralleled the earlier development of electronic shell models for the atom where the electronic equivalent of the nuclear magic numbers was the number of electrons in the relatively stable noble gas atoms (2, 10, 18, 36, 54, and 86 electrons). Just as the pattern of electronic stability had been explained by Bohr's shell model of the atom, Mayer showed that nuclei with magic numbers of protons (2, 8, 20, 28, 50, or 82) and neutrons (2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82, and 126) revealed an underlying shell structure for protons and neutrons. In a subsequent article, she provided a successful quantum mechanical explanation for the energy levels found in nuclei, which depended on strong spin-orbit coupling between nucleons. Hans D. Jensen independently arrived at a similar conclusion, and the two shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in physics for their work (9). Further progress toward developing increasingly accurate quantum mechanical descriptions of the nucleus is challenging because the nucleus is a many-bodied problem (10). The approximations that were so successfully applied to the electronic structure of the atom, with its singularly dense and highly charged nucleus, do not apply to the nucleus itself with its relatively egalitarian nucleons. The field of forces (both electrostatic and nuclear strong forces) that each nucleon in a nucleus experiences is dependent on the state and position of every other nucleon. Neutrons and protons also have distinct orbital structures that are populated according to the Pauli exclusion

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principle (similar to electrons, neutrons and protons are also Fermions with spins of 1/2). To make matters more complicated still, the magnitude of the nuclear strong force between two adjacent nucleons is highly dependent on the nucleons' relative spins. This great spin dependence on the nuclear strong force accounts for why the deuterium nucleus is stable (its proton and neutron exist in separate orbitals and can adopt parallel spins, thus maximizing the nuclear strong force interaction) and why diprotons (2He) are not stable (because, both protons would need to adopt antiparallel spins to populate the same orbital). The great dependence of the nuclear strong force on the relative spin of nucleons is also a central feature of the continuing controversy over the existence of free neutron clusters (nuclei with no protons!) (11). Conclusion Even though a deeper understanding of nuclear structure offers no additional insight into the chemical behavior of atoms, it is still important that introductory students are aware of the existence of the nuclear strong force; if for no other reason, so they can be confident that the existence of the nucleus is compatible with their understanding of electrostatic forces. Furthermore, insight into the nuclear properties of atoms can be gained by adopting a relatively simple description of nucleon-nucleon interactions. General chemistry students, many of whom are also students of physics, need not suffer from the omissions and outright errors that exist in introductory and general chemistry textbooks today.8. Surely, if there is textbook space and classroom time to present idealized accounts of J. J. Thompson's discovery of the electron, Rutherford's discovery of the nucleus, or Millikan's experiment determining the charge on the electron, then there ought to be room for a few sentences on why nuclei can exist. Acknowledgment The author thanks Jack M. Mochel, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Kim Kostka, Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin Colleges, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. Notes
1. Nuclear scientists had several other reasons to postulate the existence of inner atom or nuclear electrons: (a) -rays were then known to be high-speed electrons emitted from the nucleus and (b) the nuclear electron model could explain the discrepancy between the charge on a nucleus and its mass. For example, Rutherford pictured the helium nucleus as four protons and two inner atom electrons tightly bound to two of the protons, which accounted for the mass and charge of the helium nucleus. Rutherford suggested that that these inner atom electrons were subject to novel forces (1). The nuclear electron hypothesis was challenged first on quantum mechanical grounds in the late 1920s and then gradually fell out of favor following Chadwick's discovery of the neutron in 1932 (2). 2. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. See the STEM Educational Coalition Web site for more information, http://www.stemedcoalition.org/ (accessed Jan 2010).

3. The collection of evidence that first inspired scientists to propose the existence of quarks was a growing zoo of shortlived particles that physicists were discovering in the 1950s. These strongly interacting particles, now called hadrons, were first detected in cosmic rays but were then also generated in the increasingly powerful particle accelerators that were being built. Early on, these particles numbered in the dozens, but by the 1960s there were over 200 different hadrons known. In 1961, Gell-Mann and N eeman independently classified these particles into groups, mostly octets, that were based on the relationships between the particles and their properties (similar to what Mendeleev had done with the elements). Gaps in the classification scheme led to the successful prediction of previously unknown hadrons, many of which were discovered shortly afterward. As confidence in the scheme increased, its pattern suggested to many that the hadrons possess substructure and were made up of more fundamental particles. Gell-Mann and Zweig independently proposed the existence of three types of quarks (Zweig called his aces) to account for all of the hadrons that were known at the time. Today, the quark model presumes the existence of six different quarks: up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom (and their antiquarks) (3, 4). Quarks account for the spin, charge, spectra, and decay pathways of more than 200 known hadrons, including the proton and neutron. In addition to the explanatory power of the quarks in making sense of the particle zoo of hadrons, physicists have more direct evidence for quarks: high-energy particle-scattering experiments on protons. These experiments consistently show that the overwhelming volume of the proton is empty space and that the incident particles are scattered off of extremely small constituents within the proton. These small constituents were found to possess a very high charge density and a spin of 1/2, evidence that is fully consistent with the quark model. 4. The four fundamental forces of nature are, in order of increasing strength: gravity, weak (the very short-range force that mediates -decay), electromagnetic, and strong (color) forces. Physicists do not understand the ultimate origin of these forces, though some theoretical physicists hope to develop a theory of everything, that would uncover the common origin of the forces (at this point, only the weak force and electromagnetic forces have been unified). Because the relative strength of these forces depends greatly on contexts in which they act, they can only be roughly compared in strength: the nuclear strong force is 100 times stronger than the electromagnetic force; the electromagnetic force 1011 times stronger than the weak force; and the feeble force of gravity 1037 times weaker than the electromagnetic force. Although the color force is much stronger than the secondary nuclear strong force that arises from it, no one has yet been able to successfully model a force law to describe it. 5. Baryons, those hadrons that include the nucleons and the heavier particles that decay into nucleons, are all composed of three-quark combinations with a zero color charge (similarly, antiparticles like the antiproton and antineutron are combinations of three antiquarks with a total color charge of zero). However, the mesons, which have a mass less than that of the nucleons but greater than that of an electron, are composed of a quark-antiquark pair (the presence of a quark and an antiquark of the same color also results in a zero color charge). 6. A more thorough discussion of the relationship between the nuclear strong force and the color force is beyond the scope of this article. The quark model for the nucleon presented here is

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necessarily a simplified one and does not include the mechanism for how the color force is mediated between quarks through the exchange of virtual particles called gluons. I refer the reader to refs 3 and 4 for descriptions of this interaction. These quarkgluon dynamics are not yet well-understood, and there has not yet been a force law developed to describe the color force in the same way that the other fundamental forces have been described (though it is understood that the color force, similar to the weak force, has a finite range, unlike gravity and electromagnetic forces that extend into space with a decreasing magnitude but without bound). Sophisticated quark models and quantum mechanical calculations are required in efforts to better model the magnitude of the spin and mass of nucleons (12). 7. The stability associated with magic numbers can be identified by the large numbers of stable isotopes that exist for nuclei that contain a magic number of protons and by the large number of stable isotones (nuclei having the same number of neutrons but a different number of protons) that exist for those nuclei having magic numbers of neutrons. Additionally, nuclei containing magic numbers of protons or neutrons are also characterized by their high binding energies and high nuclear excitation energies and nuclei with a magic number of neutrons have a much lower neutron absorption cross section. 8. After examining the recent versions of 15 popular introductory and general chemistry textbooks, I found only three texts that describe a strong attractive nuclear force as part of their introduction to atomic structure. Approximately half of the texts did not address the nuclear strong force in later chapters on nuclear physics, even though the chapters included sections on nuclear stability! Of the texts that did attempt to address intranuclear forces in chapters on nuclear physics, two had admirably clear, succinct, and correct descriptions of nucleon-nucleon interactions. The other textbooks had more or less incorrect statements in their descriptions. For example, an error in one text describes that ...neutrons function as a kind

of nuclear `glue' that holds nuclei together by overcoming proton-proton repulsions. The more protons there are in the nucleus, the more glue is needed. Another stated that The weak force is 100 times weaker than the strong force (whereas the weak force is 1013 times weaker than the nuclear strong force). An apparently common error was found in another text: ...[the strong force] can act only over a very short distance; about the diameter of a nucleus. This is a significant error, because the range of the strong force is much smaller than a typical nuclear diameter, a feature that can be used to explain the upper limit for the size of nuclei.

Literature Cited
1. Rutherford, E. Proc. R. Soc. London A 1920, 97, 374400. 2. Stuewer, R. H. The Nuclear Electron Hypothesis. In Otto Hahn and the Rise of Nuclear Physics; Shea, W. R., Ed.; Reidel: Boston,1983; pp 19-67. 3. Han, M. Y. Quarks and Gluons;A Century of Particle Charges; World Scientific Publishing Co.: Singapore, 1999. 4. N eeman, Y.; Kirsh, Y. The Particle Hunters, 2nd ed.; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1996. 5. Han, M. Y. Quarks and Gluons;A Century of Particle Charges; World Scientific Publishing Co.: Singapore, 1999; p 110. 6. N eeman, Y.; Kirsh, Y. The Particle Hunters, 2nd ed.; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1996; pp 214. 7. Han, M. Y. Quarks and Gluons;A Century of Particle Charges; World Scientific Publishing Co.: Singapore, 1999; p 65. 8. Mayer, M. G. Phys. Rev. 1948, 74, 235239. 9. Johnson, K. E. Phys. Today 1986, 39 (9), 4449. 10. Dean, D. J. Phys. Today 2007, 60 (11), 4853. 11. For a short description of the controversy over the possible existence of a tetraneutron, see: Samuel, E. New Sci. 2002, 176 (Oct 26), 30 33. 12. Jaffe, R. L. Phys. Today 1995, 48 (9), 2430.

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