The atomic nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons, where the latter are made up of quarks (► particle physics). It is a complex compound system which is held together by the strong interaction and may change its charge by radioactive processes due to the (electro)weak interaction, giving rise to ► nuclear fission and fusion. Due to the complexity of the nuclei and their constituents (the nucleons, the proton and neutron), there are several nuclear models. It is remarkable that quantum mechanical and ► semi-classical models co-exist with the quark ► parton model of ► quantum field theory. Quarks, see ► Color Charge Degree of Freedom in Particle Physics; Mixing and Oscillations of Particles; Particle Physics; Parton Model; QCD; QFT.
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Falkenburg, B. (2009). Nuclear Models. In: Greenberger, D., Hentschel, K., Weinert, F. (eds) Compendium of Quantum Physics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-70626-7_127
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