Charge symmetry breaking interactions and coulomb energy differences

A detailed study of the possibility that the long standing discrepancies between theory and experiment in the values of Coulomb displacement energies have their origin in the charge asymmetry of the nuclear force is presented. A review of the present status of the theory of Coulomb displacement energies of mirror states is given. We have constructed a phenomenological charge asymmetric potential that can remove the Coulomb energy discrepancies for several mirror nuclei yet having only minimal effect on the ¹S₀ nucleon-nucleon scattering length. The form of this potential is however not compatible with the contributions due to charge asymmetric meson exchange processes that have been considered in the literature. We assume that these meson exchange effects can be reasonably described, up to strength factors, by a sum of one-pion, one-scalar-meson (σ) and one-vector-meson exchange potentials. The need for some additional type of charge asymmetric effect, e.g. three-body forces, is pointed out.