Nuclear force

The nuclear force (or nucleon-nucleon interaction or residual strong force) is the force between two or more nucleons.

It is responsible for binding of protons and neutrons into atomic nuclei. To a large extent, this force can be understood in terms of the exchange of virtual light mesons, such as the pions.

Sometimes the nuclear force is called the residual strong force, in contrast to the strong interactions which are now understood to arise from quantum chromodynamics (QCD).

This phrasing arose during the 1970s when QCD was being established. Before that time, the strong nuclear force referred to the inter-nucleon potential.

After the verification of the quark model, strong interaction has come to mean QCD.