Skyrmions
The Skyrme model provides a soliton description of atomic nuclei. In the past, it has been used to describe the properties of nucleons as well as the rotational spectra of some small nuclei. More recently, {alpha}-particle clustering has been observed in the Skyrme model, and it predicts interesting structures for nuclei of baryon number B divisible by four. A promising approach to find some Skyrmions with intermediate baryon numbers is to remove single nucleons from Skyrmions made from {alpha}-particles. More insight into the interactions of two {alpha}-particles has been gained recently, and it seems now possible to find vibrational spectra.
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗