Interaction of Static Nucleons

Abstract

The Heitler-London method has been applied to the calculation of the energy of interaction of two nucleons, as given by the fixed-source model. Numerical results are also given for the normalization of the state vector and the number of mesons in the cloud, for the states which comprise the deuteron. Particular attention is given to the rate of convergence of the expansions and the influence of the excited states of the nucleons. The relation to the Tamm-Dancoff method is also discussed in detail. It is shown that in $T=0$ states, the interaction does not appear to differ in any significant way from the one-meson exchange term. In $T=1$ states, on the other hand very large contributions are obtained from the higher order terms. These contributions have such a nature as to suggest that even at low energies it is improper to apply the fixed-source model, with the assumption that the meson cloud follows adiabatically the motion of the nucleons, to $T=1$ states.