Nucleon

As nucleons [ nucleo nən ː ] (singular nucleon [ nu ː kleɔn ]; Latin nucleus " the core " ) refers to the atomic core building blocks, ie those particles that make up atomic nuclei, ie protons and neutrons.

Nucleons are all baryons which are composed exclusively from the slight up-and down - quarks and have isospin 1/2. This definition includes not only the proton and neutron and excited states with the quark composition ( uud) and ( udd ), the extremely short-lived nucleon. The Particle Data Group provides for the existence of 14 nucleons as secured (evidence is Certain ) or almost certain (evidence ranges from very likely to Certain ) and has evidence of a further eight nucleons (as of 2007). Here, the charge states are not distinguished; Proton and neutron are in this counting a so and the same nucleon.

The quarks have only 5 % of the mass of the nucleons, the remaining 95 % of the mass come from the binding energy and the kinetic energy of the quarks. A team of researchers at the Research Center Jülich is to calculate the mass of protons and neutrons in a theoretical way succeeded. The simulations confirm the basics of quantum chromodynamics.