Nuclear equation of state in a relativistic independent quark model with chiral symmetry and dependence on quark masses

Abstract

We have calculated the properties of nuclear matter in a self-consistent manner with a quark-meson coupling mechanism incorporating the structure of nucleons in vacuum through a relativistic potential model; where the dominant confining interaction for the free independent quarks inside a nucleon is represented by a phenomenologically average potential in equally mixed scalar-vector harmonic form. Corrections due to spurious center of mass motion as well as those due to other residual interactions, such as the one gluon exchange at short distances and quark-pion coupling arising out of chiral symmetry restoration, have been considered in a perturbative manner to obtain the nucleon mass in vacuum. The nucleon-nucleon interaction in nuclear matter is then realized by introducing additional quark couplings to $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ and $\ensuremath{\omega}$ mesons through mean field approximations. The relevant parameters of the interaction are obtained self-consistently while realizing the saturation properties such as the binding energy, pressure, and compressibility of the nuclear matter. We also discuss some implications of chiral symmetry in nuclear matter along with the nucleon and nuclear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ term and the sensitivity of nuclear matter binding energy with variations in the light quark mass.