Relativistic nuclear theory—nucleons and mesons: origin, current status, and trends

The nuclear shell model (NSM) is a fundamental model of nuclear theory. At the initial stage, the NSM was developed on the basis of the Schrödinger equation, in particular because it was not clear which Dirac matrices should be associated with various components of the (relativistic) shell model potential. In the early 1970s, the relativistic version of the NSM with meson fields as its main components was developed on the basis of the Dirac equation. The relativistic nuclear shell model (RNSM) includes meson fields with different space–time transformation properties (scalar, four-vector, etc.) that determine the behavior of the (corresponding) meson fields under Lorentz transformations. This fact directly indicates that nuclear theory should be relativistic and based on the Dirac equation.