Nuclear equation of state in a relativistic independent quark model with chiral symmetry and variation with quark masses

Abstract: We have calculated the properties of nuclear matter in a self-consistent manner with quark-meson coupling mechanism incorporating structure of nucleons in vacuum through a relativistic potential model; where the dominant confining interaction for the free independent quarks inside a nucleon, is represented by a phenomenologically average potential in equally mixed scalar-vector harmonic form. Corrections due to spurious centre of mass motion as well as those due to other residual interactions such as the one gluon exchange at short distances and quark-pion coupling arising out of chiral symmetry restoration; have been considered in a perturbation manner to obtain the nucleon mass in vacuum. The nucleon-nucleon interaction in nuclear matter is then realized by introducing additional quark couplings to sigma and omega mesons through mean field approximations. The relevant parameters of the interaction are obtained self consistently while realizing the saturation properties such as the binding energy, pressure and compressibility of the nuclear matter. We also discuss some implications of chiral symmetry in nuclear matter along with the nucleon and nuclear sigma term and the sensitivity of nuclear matter binding energy with variations in the light quark mass.