PROPERTIES OF NUCLEAR MATTER AND STRUCTURE oF NEUTRON STARS IN A RELA TIVISTIC QUARK MODEL

Abstract

Nuclear physics lacks a coherent theoretical formulation that would per newlinemit us to analyze and interpret all phenomena in a fundamental way. This newlinemakes the characterisation of nuclear properties quite diand#64259;cult. In such a newlinebackdrop investigators adopt phenomenological models with relatively small newlinenumber of parameters to reproduce the measurables such as electric charge, newlineradius, mass, binding energy, angular momentum, parity, magnetic dipole newlineand electric quadrupole moments and energies of excited states of a nucleus. newlineThus a large number of experiments have been conducted to study various newlineproperties of nucleus and of nuclear matter considering interactions between newlinethe nucleons. This has encouraged the development of theoretical frame newlineworks for explaining nucleon-nucleon interactions at various distance scales, newlinehence providing a basis to analyse diand#64256;erent nuclear phenomena. newlineIt is now known that the nucleon-nucleon interaction ultimately arises newlinefrom the quark and gluon substructure of hadrons. Hadrons, the strongly newlineinteracting particles, are known to be colour singlet composites of quarks and newlineanti-quarks governed by the fundamental theory of strong interaction called newlineQuantum Chromodynamics (QCD). The and#64257;rst principle application of QCD newlinedoes not lead in any straight forward manner to the exact form of the con newlineand#64257;ning interaction, between quarks and/or anti-quarks, which is responsible newlinefor their bound state conand#64257;gurations. Therefore hadronic structure is usually newlineanalyzed through the determination of spectroscopic levels of hadrons based newlineon some QCD inspired phenomenological potentials. newlineThe present thesis is an attempt to explain various properties of nu newlineclear matter invoking a QCD inspired phenomenological potential model of newlinehadron structure in which the quarks are coupled to the relativistic mean newlineand#64257;elds typically expected to arise in nuclear matter. While the earlier models newlineof nuclear matter treated both nucleons and mesons as point particles, the newlinepresent thesis uses a relativistic quark model in which baryons are expressed newlineas