Tuesday, February 07, 2006

color charge - definition - quarks, the standard model, particle physics

Definition: the source of color force between quarks and gluons in Quantum Chromodynamics, just as electrical charge is the source of the force between charged particles and photons.

There are three types of charges possesed by the quarks and gluons of normal matter: red, green and blue. Antiquarks possess the corresponding anticolors yellow, magenta and cyan. Quarks are not actually colored, its just a metaphor for the fact that quarks are always found in groups consisting of all three colors or anticolors (the baryons) or one color and its anticolor (the mesons) or even both (the pentaquark consists of a triplet and a pair). Thus the three colors (or color-anticolor pair) of every particle combine to make white.

Alternate Spellings: colour charge

No comments: