Possible light neutral boson and particle mass quantization

Qualities of nucleons, such as the fundamental parameter mass, might be modified in extreme conditions relative to those of isolated nucleons. We show the ratio of the EMC-effect tagged nucleon mass to that of the free one (m^∗/m); these values are derived from the nuclear structure function ratio between heavy nuclei and deuterium measured in the electron Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) reaction in 0.3 ≼ x ≼0.7. The increase in m^∗/m with A⁻¹/3 is phenomenologically interpreted via the release of a color-singlet cluster formed by sea quarks and gluons in bound nucleons holding high momentum in the nucleus, from which the mass and fraction of non-nucleonic components in nuclei can be deduced. The mass of color-singlet clusters released per short range correlated (SRC) proton in the high momentum region (k > 2 fm⁻¹ ) is extracted to be 16.890±0.016 MeV/c², which evidences the possibility of a light neutral boson and quantized mass of matter.