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Questions tagged [quantum-chromodynamics]

Quantum-ChromoDynamics (QCD) is the quantum field theory believed to describe the strong nuclear force.

72 votes
8 answers
70k views

Is there an equation for the strong nuclear force?

The equation describing the force due to gravity is $$F = G \frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2}.$$ Similarly the force due to the electrostatic force is $$F = k \frac{q_1 q_2}{r^2}.$$ Is there a similar equation ...
ergodicsum's user avatar
37 votes
4 answers
26k views

Is it pions or gluons that mediate the strong force between nucleons?

From my recent experience teaching high school students I've found that they are taught that the strong force between nucleons is mediated by virtual-pion exchange, whereas between quarks it's gluons. ...
qftme's user avatar
  • 1,820
36 votes
4 answers
6k views

Why have our eyes not evolved to see "gluons"? [closed]

The photons are the propagators for QED, and we rely on photons to see the world around us. The gluon is the propagator in QCD. Why have our eyes not evolved to see gluons (either on top of being ...
DarthPlagueis's user avatar
35 votes
2 answers
5k views

What does it mean that there is no mathematical proof for confinement?

I see this all the time* that there still doesn't exist a mathematical proof for confinement. What does this really mean and how would a sketch of a proof look like? What I mean by that second ...
Physics_maths's user avatar
33 votes
3 answers
3k views

What exactly is a pomeron?

The term 'pomeron' was apparently important in the early stages of QCD. I can't find any reference to it in modern QFT books, but older resources sometimes refer to it offhand, and I've yet to find ...
knzhou's user avatar
  • 103k
33 votes
2 answers
21k views

What is the significance of the QCD scale parameter $\Lambda$?

I see that it appears as a constant in the relation for the running of the strong coupling constant. What is its significance? Does it have to be established by experiment? Is it somehow a scale for ...
dbrane's user avatar
  • 8,790
32 votes
6 answers
8k views

What is the experimental evidence that the nucleons are made up of three quarks?

What is the experimental evidence that the nucleons are made up of three quarks? What is the point of saying that nucleons are made of quarks when there are also gluons inside it?
Solidification's user avatar
29 votes
1 answer
6k views

Mathematically, what is color charge?

A similar question was asked here, but the answer didn't address the following, at least not in a way that I could understand. Electric charge is simple - it's just a real scalar quantity. Ignoring ...
Hugh Allen's user avatar
  • 1,505
26 votes
3 answers
5k views

How (or when) do gluons change the color of a quark?

I know a baryon is only stable when it contains a quark of each color. And as far as I know, the gluon essentially changes the color of a quark and moves onto the next, and this is what holds the ...
Vedvart1's user avatar
  • 508
26 votes
1 answer
2k views

Why we don't have macroscopic fields of Higgs bosons or gluons?

Why is it that there exists a classical macroscopic field of photons and gravitons but not that of $Z, W^{\pm}$ bosons, gluons or Higgs boson?
user avatar
26 votes
1 answer
2k views

The divergence in QCD Series-- How many are they, and what do they mean?

I am referring to this question, and especially this answer. In addition, QCD has - like all field theories - only an asymptotic perturbation series, which means that the series itself will also ...
Graviton's user avatar
  • 2,566
26 votes
2 answers
3k views

Is there a strong force analog to magnetic fields?

In special relativity, magnetism can be re-interpreted as an aspect of how electric charges interact when viewed from different inertial frames. Color charge is more complex than electric charge, but ...
Terry Bollinger's user avatar
26 votes
1 answer
1k views

What is the status of Witten's and Vafa's argument that the QCD vacuum energy is a minimum for zero $\theta$ angle?

The argument, which I reproduce here from Ramond's `Journies BSM', is originally by Witten and Vafa in ($\it{Phys}$. $\it{Rev}$. $\it{Lett}$. 53, 535(1984)). The argument is that for $\theta = 0 $ (...
DJBunk's user avatar
  • 3,758
22 votes
2 answers
3k views

What are the details around the origin of the string theory?

It is well-known even among the lay public (thanks to popular books) that string theory first arose in the field of strong interactions where certain scattering amplitudes had properties that could be ...
Marek's user avatar
  • 23.7k
22 votes
1 answer
7k views

How to Perform Wick Rotation in the Lagrangian of a Gauge Theory (like QCD)?

I'm studying Lattice QCD and got stuck in understanding the process of going from a Minkowski space-time to an Euclidean space-time. My procedure is the following: I considered the Wick rotation in ...
WilhelmM's user avatar
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