A Phenomenological Model for Hypernuclear Binding Energies

Abstract

The form of the dependence of the binding energy of the A-particle in hypernuclei on the mass number .A is of interest in obtaining empirical information about the hyperon-nucleon interaction. As an introductory calculation we considered the simple model in which the total A-nucleon interaction is replaced by a potential well V(r) in which the A moves and in which the only ·effect of varying .A is to vary the radius but not the depth of the well. The binding energy of the A, B A' is then given by the ground state energy of a particle in this well. The aim of our calculations was to determine whether the present experimental values of B A defined a unique well sbape.