Nucleus from String Theory

Understand

In generic holographic QCD, we find that baryons are bound to form a nucleus, and that its radius obeys the empirically-known mass number (A) dependence r A^{1/3} for large A.

• Our result is robust, since we use only a generic property of D-brane actions in string theory.
• We also show that nucleons are bound completely in a finite volume.
• Furthermore, employing a concrete holographic model (derived by Hashimoto, Iizuka, and Yi, describing a multi-baryon system in the Sakai-Sugimoto model), the nuclear radius is evaluated as O(1) x A^{1/3} [fm], which is consistent with experiments.