Large-N_c nuclear potential puzzle

An analysis of the baryon-baryon potential from the point of view of large-N_c QCD is performed. A comparison is made between the N_c-scaling behavior directly obtained from an analysis at the quark-gluon level to the N_c scaling of the potential for a generic hadronic field theory in which it arises via meson exchanges and for which the parameters of the theory are given by their canonical large-N_c scaling behavior. The purpose of this comparison is to use large-N_c consistency to test the widespread view that the interaction between nuclei arises from QCD through the exchange of mesons. Although at the one- and two-meson exchange level the scaling rules for the potential derived from the hadronic theory matches the quark-gluon level prediction, at the three- and higher-meson exchange level a generic hadronic theory yields a potential which scales with N_c faster than that of the quark-gluon theory.