Selected Topics in Astro-Hadron Physics: Going from a Proton to Nuclei to Neutron Stars

Abstract

The effort currently in vogue in some small circle of physicists to go from a proton to nuclei to compact stars involves various aspects of particle and nuclear physics that require input from laboratory experiments, transcending narrow specialization in diverse sub-fields. Several topics on this matter are discussed in this note. The notion of Cheshire Cat Principle is introduced for nucleons, nuclei and dense hadronic matter and is confronted with experimental data on the proton, two-nucleon systems and heavy-ion experiments, with a leaping extrapolation to the structure of neutron stars. The matter discussed here illustrates that a close contact with experiments, indispensable in the present case, is essential for significant progress in {\it any} field of physics. I suggest that this is a field that has a tremendous potential for breakthrough in the Asia Pacific countries, particularly in Korea, where some of the seminal works in this area have been done by young theorists, both pre- and post-graduate.