Would protons and neutrons form bound nuclei in a world where the quarks are much heavier than they are in nature? Are nuceli generic features of dark sectors with non-Abelian gauge bosons? I will first address these questions by using the effective field theory of potential nonrelativistic QCD to derive analytic results about gluon "van der Waals" forces and perform numerical quantum Monte Carlo calculations searching for nuclear bound states of heavy quarks. I will then turn to lattice QCD calculations of two-nucleon systems at intermediate quark masses. Systematic uncertainties are challenging to quantify in this case; however, I will present new methods for establishing rigorous two-sided bounds on the lattice QCD energy spectrum using the Lanczos / Rayleigh-Ritz framework.
Choose timezone
Your profile timezone:
