Yes nuclear force/interaction is mediated by Pi mesons. Since Pi mesons are massive the force is short ranged, i.e. potential is Yukawa type (decays as exponent). In case of electromagnetism (EM), the mediator is massless photon. Thus, EM force is long range force.

This is a bit confusing when the literature speaks of a quark confinement being long range; this leads me to think that there must be something else other than pi mesons repsonsible for holding protons together.

Pion exchange is a very useful way to think of it, but it gets more complicated if you want to look at the underlying connection to quarks. You can think of the strong force in nuclei as being a consequence of the strong force of QCD. In QCD, you have gluons being exchanged between quarks (analogous to photon exchange in EM). Because color (and therefore individual quarks and gluons) must be confined, protons and neutron can't exchange gluons at long range, they can only exchange bound states (hadrons) with no net color. Since the pion is the lightest hadron, it gives the longest range part of the nuclear force. Conceptually, you can treat gluons and pions as the force carries of two different 'strong' forces, but the strong nuclear force is built up from the underlying QCD strong force.

In terms of pion exchange, does the pion physically bind onto the two baryons such as two protons thereby holding them in a bound state in a nucleus?

@John Arrington, what if two hadrons (such as two protons) are within what is considered short range; has it been shown that gluons can transmit the strong nuclear force binding the protons together?

I would say that the details of what happens at very short distances are still unclear. However, single gluon exchange cannot be the source of short distance interactions because it would not leave the nucleons in 'colorless' (color singlet) objects. So quark or gluon exchange between the two nucleons is a more common picture for hard interactions at short distances.

I'd like to clarify here that real mesons are not force carriers. Exchange of virtual mesons is a good approximation to describe nuclear interactions, but the only carriers of strong force are gluons, that couple to quarks and other gluons. Yukawa theory was developed well before gluons were proposed and discovered.

:-) nice discussion. I'm really looking forward to see publications on quark and/or gluon interactions in nucleon-nucleon interactions or in the nucleus :-) no, to enter some Information with respect to your question: besides typical nuclear models emerging from the 1930', a lot of work has been spent on current algebras and effective field theories starting from the early 1960'. In Addition, there are various groups publishing potentials and performing (nuclear) calculations based on 'Lagrangeans' which derive from meson exchange ideas. Basically, as all of these Langrangeans introduce all the 15 Dirac operators and enough 'coupling constants' and parameters, the calculation allows to fit a lot of experimental data. And if that's not sufficient, there are further mechanisms ('higher orders') which help theoretical and experimental data to approach asymptotically... by the way, this is no difference with respect to 'strict' quantum field theory when calculating higher orders perturbation theory... you'll soon reach the 15 Independent possibilities to reorder the Dirac Algebra - or to state this issue more precise, to describe the collineations represented by the Dirac algebra, In fact, basically it's a matter of completeness and reparametrization...

@Oxana - it is certainly true that gluons are *the* force carrier of QCD. But the phrase "the strong force" is sometimes used to refer to QCD. and sometimes used to refer to the force that binds nuclei. In the latter case, I would say it's reasonable to refer to the pion as one of the force carriers (for the longest range component). While it's not a fundamental particle, I would argue that it's a more correct way of looking at it than gluon exchange when talking about binding of nuclei. It certainly all arises from QCD, but gluon exchange doesn't give a good description of the long-range N-N interaction.

What is considered short range and long range nuclear interaction (in units)?

The involment of mesons without electric charge, that it gives exchanges forces between proton and Neutron and also therefore maintains charge in dependence character. It is evident for the nature of the products that neutral mesons decay by strong and weak interaction both. It means that neutral mesons constituents responsible for the electromagnetic interaction.