The classical concept of work in a QCD context?

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
2 replies · 1K views
walkeraj
Messages
17
Reaction score
4
Question: Is it meaningful to think of the repulsion of mutual color charge and the attraction of three different color charge in QCD as being indicative of the classical concept of work taking place?

Exactly, how is this explained in the context of three charges needed to elicit the attraction, or in other words the attractive motion of three quarks?
 
Last edited:
Reply
  • Skeptical
Likes   Reactions: PeroK
Physics news on Phys.org
Classical concepts are seldom useful in the quantum domain. Yes, you can stretch them to try and make things sort of fit together, but you really want to be using quantum mechanics.

If you think "red" and "anti-red" are physical things, you probably also misunderstand how color works.
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: PeterDonis
walkeraj said:
Question: Is it meaningful to think of the repulsion of mutual color charge and the attraction of three different color charge in QCD as being indicative of the classical concept of work taking place?
If by the “classical concept of work” you mean the ##W## in ##W=Fd##, no. There's nothing analogous to the classical concepts of distance or force here, so no way of applying that classical definition of work.