At large distances, it increases rapidly. But what about quarks outside of those bound states? Could they possibly exist? That's what Katie Bacher wants to know, inquiring:Īt high energies (corresponding to small distances), the strong force's interaction strength drops.
Inside each proton and neutrons, though, are quarks and gluons: the constituents of all baryons and mesons we've ever created from particle accelerators and cosmic rays. Each atom is composed of electrons, the lightest charged lepton, and an atomic nucleus composed of protons and neutrons. Normal, atom-based matter is far less in number, but far more important in terms of mass and energy. Photons and neutrinos zip through the Universe all the time, far outnumbering all the other particles. Maschen / Wikimedia CommonsĪll the matter we know of in the Universe is made up of Standard Model particles. The gluon exchanges that keep these entities stable is quite complicated, but nothing with a net color charge should ever be able to stably exist in nature. Combinations of three quarks (RGB) or three antiquarks (CMY) are colorless, as are appropriate.
