#color charge

[truphysics]

Quark-Gluon Plasma

Introduction Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) is an extreme state of matter believed to have existed microseconds after the Big Bang. It’s a hot, dense phase of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) where quarks and gluons—fundamental particles of the strong interaction—roam free rather than being confined within hadrons (like protons and neutrons). The study of QGP provides crucial insights into the early…

View On WordPress

[precurequotes]

“The rainbow spectrum lighting up the galaxy! Cure Cosmo!”

[startswithabang]

Quarks Don't Actually Have Colors

“We may call it color charge, but the strong nuclear force obeys rules that are unique among all the phenomena in the Universe. While we ascribe colors to quarks, anticolors to antiquarks, and color-anticolor combinations to gluons, it's only a limited analogy. In truth, none of the particles or antiparticles have a color at all, but merely obey the rules of an interaction that has three fundamental types of charge, and only combinations that have no net charge under this system are allowed to exist in nature.

This intricate interaction is the only known force that can overcome the electromagnetic force and keep two particles of like electric charge bound together into a single, stable structure: the atomic nucleus. Quarks don't actually have colors, but they do have charges as governed by the strong interaction. Only with these unique properties can the building blocks of matter combine to produce the Universe we inhabit today.”

At a fundamental level, forces like gravity are easy. There’s only one type of charge, mass/energy, and it’s always attractive. The electric force is a little more complex, with two types of fundamental electric charges, positive or negative, where like charges repel and opposite charges attract. But in the theory of the strong interactions, there are three fundamental types of charge, and that changes everything. We call this color charge because of a good analogy with how additive and subtractive colors work, but we can learn even more by investigating where the analogies break down.

Nature is bizarre, but if we’re careful we can understand it. Quarks don’t actually have colors, but what they do have may be even more interesting. Come find out about it today.

[startswithabang]

Ask Ethan: If Matter Is Made Of Point Particles, Why Does Everything Have A Size?

“Many sources state that quarks are point particles... so one would think that objects composed of them — in this instance, neutrons — would also be points. Is my logic flawed? Or would they be bound to each other in such a way that they would cause the resulting neutron to have angular size?”

When we consider things like molecules, atoms, or even protons and neutrons, they all have finite, measurable sizes. Yet the fundamental particles that they’re made out of, like quarks, electrons, and gluons, are all inherently points, with no physical size to them at all. Why, then, does every composite particle not only have a size, but some of them, like atoms, grow to be relatively huge almost immediately, even with only a few fundamental particles involved? It’s due to three factors that all work together: forces, the quantum properties of the particles themselves, and energy. Since the strong and electromagnetic forces work against each other, quarks and gluons can form finite-sized protons; protons and neutrons assemble into nuclei larger than the protons and neutrons combined would make; electrons, with their low mass and high zero-point energy, orbit around nuclei only at great (relative) distances.

Matter doesn’t need to be made of finite-sized particles to wind up creating the macroscopic Universe we know and love. Find out how on this week’s Ask Ethan!

[truphysics]

Gluons

Introduction Gluons are elementary particles that mediate the strong interaction, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. They are the force carriers of the strong nuclear force, much like photons are for the electromagnetic force. Properties of Gluons Gluons are bosons, particles with integer spin, and they possess a property known as color charge. They are massless and have a spin of…

View On WordPress

[truphysics]

Strong Nuclear Force

Introduction The strong nuclear force, also known as the strong interaction or the strong force, is one of the four fundamental forces of nature. It is the force responsible for binding protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei. The strong force is approximately 100 times stronger than the electromagnetic force, a million times stronger than the weak interaction, and $10^38$ times stronger…

View On WordPress

[vindictivo]

[jaywacker]

When a gluino hadronizes it is called an R-hadron. The gluino picks ups quarks to neutralize its "color charge".  These quarks can be shuffled around as the it propagates through matter.  This can be the dominant way that an R-Hadron can be seen at the LHC.

http://arXiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0506242