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Gluon
Gluon
In
physics, gluons are the
elementary particles which are responsible for the
strong nuclear force. They bind
quarks together to form
protons and
neutrons; their
electric charge is zero, their
spin is 1 and they are generally assumed to have zero mass. Gluons are
ultimately responsible for the stability of
atomic nuclei.
In
quantum chromodynamics (QCD), today's accepted theory for the description of
the strong nuclear force, gluons are exchanged when particles with a color
charge interact. When two quarks exchange a gluon, their color charges change;
the gluon carries an anti-color charge to compensate for the quark's old color
charge, as well as the quark's new color charge. Since gluons thus carry a
color-charge themselves, they can also interact with other gluons, which makes
the mathematical analysis of the strong nuclear force quite complicated and
difficult.
The first experimental traces of gluons were found in the
early
1980s at the
electron-positron-collider
PETRA at the
DESY
in
Hamburg, when evidence for a clear three-jet structure was found; the third
jet was attributed to one of the produced quarks emitting a gluon.
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