Anomaly In The Decay Of Be-8 And He-4-Can An Observed Light Boson Mediate Low-Energy Nucleon-Nucleon Interactions?

We present a hypothesis that the reported anomaly in the folding angle distribution of electron-positron pairs, emitted in the decay of the excited levels of nucleus Be-8 and He-4, can be related to the cluster structure of the decaying state. In particular, we suggest that the potentially reported boson with rest mass m ( X ) = 17 MeV can mediate the nucleon-nucleon interaction at the low-energy regime of QCD, in the weakly bound cluster state p + Li-7, and p + H-3. We explore possible equations of state of symmetric nuclear matter, corresponding to the vector meson mass m (v) = 17 MeV, obtained using relativistic mean field theory of nuclear force using QHD-I. We find several relations for boson masses, based on concepts of chiral symmetry breaking. Both model approaches thus point toward apparent restoration of chiral symmetry in nucleon-nucleon interaction at large distances, possibly via bounce into a false instanton vacuum. The possible existence of a boson with rest mass m ( X ) = 17 MeV in the decay of high lying excited states of Be-8 and He-4 could shed new light in one of the long-lasting open questions in nuclear physics.