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relativityfan
Oct28-10, 09:32 AM
hi,

how do you calculate the classical radius of nucleons or quarks? do you include only the electrostatic potential energy or also some nuclear potential energy?. i have read many times that the classical radius of nucleons is lower than the classical radius of the electron, is it right?

thank you for your reply!

Meir Achuz
Oct28-10, 11:58 AM
The "classical radius", usually defined as e^2//mc^2, has no physical significance.
It would be much smaller for a nucleon than an electron, but the physical radius of a
nucleon is almost 1 fm, while the electron physical radius is probably 0.

tom.stoer
Oct28-10, 02:16 PM
For nucleons one can measure form factors (and structure functions); form factors are something like the Fourier transform of the corresponding density (charge, current, ...) so one can measure the radius indirectly via the charge, current, ... distributions

relativityfan
Oct29-10, 11:47 AM
The "classical radius", usually defined as e^2//mc^2, has no physical significance.
It would be much smaller for a nucleon than an electron, but the physical radius of a
nucleon is almost 1 fm, while the electron physical radius is probably 0.

thank you, and how does it compare with the photon?

Meir Achuz
Nov1-10, 08:15 PM
A photon is considered a point particle.