Nuclear force

The short-range interaction between protons and neutrons that binds atomic nuclei. It arises primarily as a residual effect of the strong interaction between quarks and gluons.

Residual strong interaction: The force between color-neutral composite particles that remains after the underlying strong interaction binds their constituents. The nuclear force is the residual strong interaction between color-neutral protons and neutrons.
Proton: A positively charged baryon containing two up quarks and one down quark. Protons experience the nuclear force while also repelling one another electrically.
Coulomb interaction: The electromagnetic interaction between electrically charged particles. It repels protons over long distances, unlike the short-range attraction that binds them.
Nuclear stability: The tendency of a nucleus to persist rather than undergo radioactive decay or spontaneous fission. The balance of nuclear attraction and proton repulsion determines which nuclei are stable.
Pion: A light meson composed of a quark and an antiquark, occurring as three charged states. Pion exchange provides a useful account of the nuclear force at distances near its range.
Neutron: An electrically neutral baryon containing one up quark and two down quarks. Neutrons contribute nuclear attraction without adding proton-proton Coulomb repulsion.
Strong interaction: The fundamental interaction that binds quarks into hadrons and acts between color-charged particles. The nuclear force is its residual effect, not the fundamental quark-level interaction itself.
Nuclear fission: A nuclear reaction in which a heavy nucleus splits into lighter nuclei, releasing energy and often neutrons. Fission occurs when nuclear binding favors separated fragments over a heavy nucleus.
Yukawa potential: A screened central potential that decreases exponentially with distance and is commonly written as an inverse-distance term times an exponential. Its finite range models how pion mass limits the force between nucleons.
Nucleon: Either of the two baryons, the proton or neutron, found in atomic nuclei. The nuclear force is conventionally described as an interaction among nucleons.

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