Is the Residual Strong Force Mediated by a Single Meson or Two Quarks?

[rayveldkamp]

In the Residual Strong Interaction, energy and momentum are exchanged not through gluons but through exchange of quarks, for example in the soft hadronic scattering of a pi + and proton. Is the interaction mediated by a single meson or by two quarks, and if the latter doesn't this violate quark confinement?

Ray

 

[marlon]

In the Residual Strong Interaction, energy and momentum are exchanged not through gluons but through exchange of quarks, for example in the soft hadronic scattering of a pi + and proton. Is the interaction mediated by a single meson or by two quarks, and if the latter doesn't this violate quark confinement?

Ray

Hi,

The residual strong force is mediated by pions. Pions are the lightest possible mesons. So basically like all mesons these pions are nothing else then a quark anti-quark combination. The reason why a quarkpair is mediated is because of confinement so this phenomenon is certainly respected by the residual strong force. For example it is not possible that this interaction is mediated by one single quark because it would take an infinite amount of energy in order to make sure that this quark is single...Ofcourse then we are in trouble with renormalization and our process is not physical. So it is exactly the asymptotic freedom that makes sure that no single quark is found at low energies...

regards
marlon