Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: jeffreyH on 24/04/2014 01:38:31
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The gluon is considered massless but due to its short-range nature shouldn't it have mass?
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Why do you think it shouldn't have mass?
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Why do you think it shouldn't have mass?
I would have thought that being massless it would be like the photon and travel at c and be a long range boson. The weak force bosons have mass and short range so why is the gluon different? It seems odd that's all.
Sorry I initially mis-read your post. What mass is it thought to have? I have been reading that it is considered massless.
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This was the source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluon
"Properties
The gluon is a vector boson; like the photon, it has a spin of 1. While massive spin-1 particles have three polarization states, massless gauge bosons like the gluon have only two polarization states because gauge invariance requires the polarization to be transverse. In quantum field theory, unbroken gauge invariance requires that gauge bosons have zero mass (experiment limits the gluon's rest mass to less than a few meV/c2). The gluon has negative intrinsic parity."
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My post above was pointing out that you're presupposing that zero mass particles all behave like photons. This isn't true, and Gluons are an example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_interaction#Behaviour_of_the_strong_force
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My post above was pointing out that you're presupposing that zero mass particles all behave like photons. This isn't true, and Gluons are an example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_interaction#Behaviour_of_the_strong_force
So in theory the separation can create gluon and quark pairs as well as particles and anti-particles. This in some ways resembles the two copy gluon model of gravity that has been recently proposed. It is however distinctly different in terms of confinement. The residual strong force is interesting too. Have there been any proposals of virtual particle generation due to the strong force?
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Sorry of course there are mesons. I was looking for 3 virtual particles. One of which was elusive. I didn't think about these as I didn't know much about them. I am reading this at the moment.
http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/Strong.html
The image halfway down of the forces overlaid is very interesting. The portions which mirror the electron and neutrino are currently empty. This would link the strong interactions with the electromagnetic force. If this linked the Coulomb field to the strong force this could be one of the missing virtual particles that combine in graviton exchange.