Do have leptons 0 color charge or none?

[minio]

Sorry for the stupid question, but I am just curious. I found that leptons do not have color charge, so they cannot interact like quarks and gluons, but does that mean that thay do not posses such property or is it safe to assume that their colour charge is 0?

 

[tom.stoer]

They do not posses this property which means that their color charge is 0.

Would do you think is the difference between "having zero color charge" and "having no (such property as) color charge"?

 

[phyzguy]

What's the difference? It's like asking whether I don't have any money or whether the amount of money I have is zero. It's the same thing.

 

[minio]

Well I would just expect that if they have 0 charge they still could mess up with color exchange of particles possesing charge (eg. emitting green+antigreen gluon).

 

[mathman]

Well I would just expect that if they have 0 charge they still could mess up with color exchange of particles possesing charge (eg. emitting green+antigreen gluon).

Electron interactions never involve the strong force.

 

[tom.stoer]

There is no green+antigreen i.e. colorless gluon b/c the symmetry group of the strong interaction is SU(3), not U(3); if it would be U(3) = U(1)*SU(3) then there would be a color-neutral U(1) gluon which mediating a long-range force, just like the photon. But even then this gluon would not couple to a color-less particle (again like the photon which does not couple to uncharged particles like the neutrino)

 

[arivero]

Before to answer generalities, please look for the article "lepton number as the fourth colour" by Pati and friends.

 

[minio]

There is no green+antigreen i.e. colorless gluon

I meant pair of gluons one with color and one with anticolor charge.

 

[tom.stoer]

Two gluons can indeed form a color-neutral pair, but this pair does not couple to a quark - only the indivudial gluons