Charge symmetry breaking of the nucleon-nucleon interaction: ρ-ω mixing versus nucleon mass splitting

We investigate three models for the charge symmetry breaking (CSB) of the nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction (based upon ρ-ω mixing, nucleon mass splitting, and phenomenology) that all reproduce the empirical value for the CSB of the S0 scattering length (∆aCSB) accurately. We reveal that these models make very different predictions for CSB in PJ waves and examine the impact of this on some observable quantities of A ≥ 3 nuclear systems. It turns out that the 3H-3He binding energy difference is essentially ruled by ∆aCSB and not very sensitive to CSB from P waves. However, the Coulomb displacement energies (which are the subject of the Nolen-Schiffer anomaly) receive about 50% of their CSB contribution from NN partial waves beyond S0. Consequently, the predictions by the various CSB models differ here substantially (10-20%). Unfortunately, the evaluation of the leading Coulomb contributions carry a large uncertainty such that no discrimination between the competing CSB models can presently be made. To decide the issue we suggest to look into nuclear few-body reactions that are sensitive to CSB of the nuclear force. PACS numbers: 24.80.+y, 11.30.Hv, 13.75.Cs, 21.10.Sf, 21.45.+v Typeset using REVTEX ∗e-mail address: [email protected] †e-mail address: [email protected]