W/Z Boson Decays: Quark-Antiquark Pairs to Hadron Jets

[neu]

Dominant decays of W/Z bosons are quark aintiquark pairs which decay into jets of hadrons.

But how can a quark decay into a hadron?

Surely as hadrons are bound states of quarks then hadrons are heavier and so quark->hadrons violates mass conservation (energy conservation).

I know I'm wrong but i can't see why.

what am I missing?

 

[studnte]

the process of quark->hadron is called fragmentation/hadronization. this precess is complicated. basically, there are three models: string fragmentation, independent fragmentation and cluster fragmentation. for string fragmentation, the basic idea is: two quark-anit quark connected by
a string(because colour flux), the string carries energy(1 GeV/fm).as the quark-anti quark move apart, the potential energy stored in string increases, and then the string may break down then another two pair quark-anti quark are generated. (just image a string is break, and then a new pair quarks are generated at the each end of new string), this process recycled untile on-mass shell hadrons remain. so this hadron corresponding to a small piece of string with two quarks at each of end the string. these hadrons are mostly pions. this ideal also is called lund model

but i am not a theorist and maybe there are some misunderestanding

 

[ihtw]

Another way to think of this is to consider the electromagnetisim. Atoms tend to be neutral instead of being charged.

The only stable particle charged under strong force is color-singlet. Quarks carry color (the "charge" for strong force), r/g/b. one quark cannot be color-singlet. You have to take several quarks together, to make their colors "cancel" each other.