Nucleon-nucleon interaction with a new model for quark confinement

The nucleon-nucleon interaction is studied in the framework of the constituent quark model using a new confinement potential which avoids the difficulties of Van der Waals forces and which is believed to cover the main features of color SU(3) gauge invariance. The calculated phase shifts are in general not much affected and the experimental values are reproduced quite well in case of S- and P-wave scattering. It is shown that the short range repulsion is due to one-gluon exchange, whereas the medium and long range part of the interaction is provided by pion and phenomenological σ-meson exchange. (orig.)