nLab color charge

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Context

Physics

physics, mathematical physics, philosophy of physics

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theory (physics), model (physics)

experiment, measurement, computable physics

Contents

Idea

The charge carried by quarks and gluons in the description of the strong nuclear force via quantum chromodynamics is called color charge.

If the gauge group is SU(N) and fermions are in the fundamental representation N\mathbf{N} of dimension NN, so that N\mathbf{N} has a linear basis of NN elements, one says that these are NN colors of the given fermion particle.

Hence, more generally one could reasonably say that the “number of colors” of a given fundamental particle in gauge theory is physics synonym for the choice of linear representation of the gauge group that defines this particle.

References

See also

Last revised on September 7, 2023 at 12:39:12. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.