Pions versus quarks and signal of the latter at low energies

Chiral symmetry constrains the nucleon to be a quark core surrounded by a pionic cloud. For large impact parameter nucleon-nucleon scattering, a mesonic description is a good one. We argue that for low-impact parameter scattering one can easily understand the scattering phase-shift invoking quark degrees of freedom. Calculations show that the meson exchange and the quark picture complement each other in a complete description of nucleon-nucleon phase shifts. 26 refs.; 3 figs