Do glueballs of spin-2 mediate forces?

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In summary, a spin-2 glueball has some properties in common with gravitons, but is not the same thing. It is not observed in pure form and is not a candidate for the Higgs boson. It is unstable and has a short mean lifetime.
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kodama
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gluons can form glueballs, and glueballs can have spin-0 and spin-2

as a composite boson of spin-2, does it mediate new forces/interactions, and would a spin-2 glueball always be attractive the way gravitons are?

do spin-0 glueballs form a condensate similar to the higgs field?
 
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"It has some propery in common" does not mean it is the same, it does not even mean any other property is shared. This is a general comment, you jump onto this overextrapolation in nearly every thread.
kodama said:
as a composite boson of spin-2
There are atomic nuclei and atoms that share this property. Do you see them mediating forces?
 
  • #3
mfb said:
"It has some propery in common" does not mean it is the same, it does not even mean any other property is shared. This is a general comment, you jump onto this overextrapolation in nearly every thread.
There are atomic nuclei and atoms that share this property. Do you see them mediating forces?

I'm not saying a spin-2 glueball is exactly the same as graviton or gravity, only if it mediates forces and interactions that are observable. a spin-2 glueball is a composite particle.

there are theories of top quark condensation.
 
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The short answer is that we'll tell you for sure when we see one.

No free spin-0 or spin-2 glueballs have been observed and identified as such, and it is widely assumed that they almost always contribute to scalar and tensor meson resonances that have a mix of contributors rather than appearing in pure form, although some glueball candidate resonances have been suggested.

Hypothetically, they are massive (on the same order of magnitude as other hadrons that lack heavy quarks) and are unstable with quite short mean lifetime (a small fraction of a second). So, if they exist in pure form at all, they are limited in range in space and time. For example, they would be significantly heavier (and hence probably slower moving and shorter lived) than pions which play an important part in mediating the residual strong force that binds nucleons in an atom together. So, a pure glueball probably wouldn't last over a distance even as great as a typical non-trivial atomic nucleus. Also, since they are not charged under the electroweak forces and don't interact with the Higgs boson, the only forces that can act on a glueball are the strong force and gravity (and at the scale at which we think about glueballs, gravity is negligible).

Realistically, the main observable effect of glueball interactions, other than their decays, would probably involve the contribution glueballs would make in addition to sea quarks in a hadron that might influence the overall properties of a hadron (in much the same way that strange quarks and antistrange quarks in a proton or neutron's sea of quarks materially influence the overall mass of a proton or neutron, even though it has no valence strange quarks). Similarly, glueballs might make an Nth order contribution to mediating the residual strong force between hadrons that is much smaller than the contributions of other composite bosons like the pion, slightly tweaking the strength of that residual force (perhaps by parts per thousand of the overall force strength or less which would not be detectible with the precision of current strong force measurements).
 
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1. What are glueballs of spin-2?

Glueballs of spin-2 are hypothetical particles composed entirely of gluons, the fundamental particles that mediate the strong nuclear force. They are predicted to have a spin of 2, which refers to the intrinsic angular momentum of a particle.

2. How are glueballs of spin-2 different from other particles?

Unlike most other particles, glueballs of spin-2 are not made up of quarks. Instead, they are composed entirely of gluons, which are responsible for binding quarks together to form larger particles. Glueballs of spin-2 are also predicted to have a higher energy and mass than other particles.

3. What role do glueballs of spin-2 play in mediating forces?

Glueballs of spin-2 are predicted to mediate the strong nuclear force, which is responsible for holding quarks together to form protons and neutrons. This force is one of the four fundamental forces in the universe, along with gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak nuclear force.

4. How do scientists study glueballs of spin-2?

Since glueballs of spin-2 are hypothetical particles, scientists are currently studying them through theoretical models and experiments. Some experiments involve colliding particles at high energies in particle accelerators to try and produce glueballs of spin-2. Theoretical models also help to predict the properties and behaviors of these particles.

5. Why is the study of glueballs of spin-2 important?

The existence of glueballs of spin-2 would provide further evidence for the theory of quantum chromodynamics, which explains the behavior of subatomic particles. Studying these particles could also help scientists better understand the strong nuclear force and its role in the formation of matter in the universe.

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