This project will continue theoretical research on models of the strong interaction between nucleons. The motivation lies in applications to few-body physics where predictions of realistic models can be accurately computed and the results compared to complete experimental measurements. We will continue to concentrate on meson exchange as the useful and economic model of three-nucleon interactions and of the small but interesting breaking of 'charge symmetry' in the two-nucleon interaction. We will explore the theoretical similarities between this approach to three-nucleon forces and the production of mesons from the collision of two nucleons. Some new experiments study charge symmetry breaking in meson production; the similarities proposed and explored in this project might help our understanding of these experiments. Although our models and methods utilize meson exchange, the ultimate source of charge symmetry breaking lies in the different masses of the subunits of the nucleons called quarks. We will continue field theoretical calculations at the quark level of meson properties due to quark mass differences, and compare with new experimental information on 'meson mixing' to provide a firmer basis for our models of 'charge asymmetry' in both the nucleon-nucleon interaction but also the less well known lambda-nucleon interaction. We also will continue our studies of the neutron which are guided by the Dirac equation.
