  The low energy regime of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) presents enormous
challenges due to its large coupling. Effective field theories, like the Skyrme
model, are useful approaches to study properties of strong interaction at
hadronic scales. We propose a Skyrme-type model with a self-dual sector and
that treats the density of the baryonic charge as a self-interacting fluid. The
dynamics reduces to Coleman's false vacuum problem for a scalar field that is a
fractional power of that density. The main result is that such a Skyrme-type
model is the first one to reproduce, with good accuracy, the experimental
values of radii and binding energies for a very wide range of the mass number.
The robust and simple properties of the model lead to many possible
generalizations with implications not only in nuclear physics but also in other
areas of Physics.
