Lambda-nucleon forces and structure of hypernuclei

Abstract

This paper presents an extension to hypernuclei of recent work on the structure of light nuclei. With simplified potentials, the many-body problem is solved accurately with the initial object of determining the range and magnitude of the forces required to reproduce the experimental binding energies. It is found that, although only two-body forces are needed to fit the binding energies of light nuclei, three body forces between the Λ particle and nucleons must be introduced to secure agreement with the binding energies of hypernuclei. The strength and range of all the two-body forces and the three-body forces are determined. The two-body forces are found to be nearly independent of spin and attractive. The three-body forces are repulsive, except that there is an attraction between the Λ particle and two similar nucleons. The range of the two-body forces is too large to be attributed to heavy mesons. Details of the structure of hypernuclei are described.