Symmetry/asymmetry within a cylindrical lattice model of nuclear structure predicts cosmic abundance/scarcity

Protons and neutrons are the smallest forms of matter with measurable size, and each nucleon has a mix of three up (+2/3) and down (−1/3) quarks. Quarks are treated as point-like particles within polygon-based geometries in order to model the structures of stable nuclides through 36 Ar. The model derives ab initio from the proton’s radius (r = 0.8414 fm), the hadron’s prolate spheroid shape (from the transition to the nucleon’s first excited state (the ∆(1232) resonance), and the separation distance between bound nucleons (≈0.8 fm, from the Argonne v18 NN potential). The spatial extent of the prolate spheroid nucleon is assumed to arise from its three quarks, which implies a qualitatively linear quark sequence. Spin–spin forces repel the two like-flavored quarks to opposite ends of the prolate nucleon leaving the unlike quark in the middle. It then follows that the quark-to-quark distance within the nucleon corresponds to the nucleon’s radius. Nucleons link by quark-to-quark interactions to form proton-neutron short-range correlated pairs ( pn SRCs), separated by a distance assumed equivalent to the proton’s radius. Alternating nucleons thus produce regularly alternating up/down point-like quark sequences. We contemplate various structures for each stable nuclide through Ar 18 36 and include the one whose calculated rotational radius (derived from the radius formula of a regular polygon) best correlates with its IAEA-accepted charge radius (r(31) = .98, p<.001). Nucleon alternation inherently makes pn SRC pairs, and produces the observed equal numbers of protons and neutrons (Z = N) found within isotopes He , 2 4 C , 6 12 N , 7 14 O , 8 16 Ne , 10 20 Mg , 12 24 Si , 14 28 and S