virtual particles and field carriers

[edwardrius]

I have a general grasp on the function and "existence" of bosons and such, but I'm struggling to find any sources that provide a helpful explanation of what virtual particles are in a way that I feel I'm really able to conceptualize it.  Can someone please help?  Mostly just looking for an explanation of what force carriers really are (as in if they do not technically physically exist as particles but rather are just representative terms used in the math discussion of quantum field theory, what are the fields made up of and how do they exist if they do not involve any "real" particles).

Also, sorry if any of that was wrong, please correct me if so.  I'm pretty confused so apologies in advance if any of what I explained as my understanding was false.

[exchemist]

21 minutes ago, edwardrius said:

I have a general grasp on the function and "existence" of bosons and such, but I'm struggling to find any sources that provide a helpful explanation of what virtual particles are in a way that I feel I'm really able to conceptualize it.  Can someone please help?  Mostly just looking for an explanation of what force carriers really are (as in if they do not technically physically exist as particles but rather are just representative terms used in the math discussion of quantum field theory, what are the fields made up of and how do they exist if they do not involve any "real" particles).

Also, sorry if any of that was wrong, please correct me if so.  I'm pretty confused so apologies in advance if any of what I explained as my understanding was false.

Being a mere chemist by training, I had the same difficulty for many years. I found this article by Matt Strassler very helpful: 

https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/

One key takeaway for me was that the term virtual particle is a bit unfortunate, as these disturbances in the relevant field are not particles, but just disturbances that can modelled using much of the same mathematics.

However, as a chemist, I have never studied QFT. Some of the real physicists here may be able to comment with far more authority. 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by exchemist

[Genady]

46 minutes ago, edwardrius said:

I have a general grasp on the function and "existence" of bosons and such, but I'm struggling to find any sources that provide a helpful explanation of what virtual particles are in a way that I feel I'm really able to conceptualize it.  Can someone please help?  Mostly just looking for an explanation of what force carriers really are (as in if they do not technically physically exist as particles but rather are just representative terms used in the math discussion of quantum field theory, what are the fields made up of and how do they exist if they do not involve any "real" particles).

Also, sorry if any of that was wrong, please correct me if so.  I'm pretty confused so apologies in advance if any of what I explained as my understanding was false.

The first misconception in the OP that I notice is that in fact virtual particles and force carrying particles / bosons are not the same and are not even related in a special way. Any particle, a boson or a fermion can be virtual or not in different particle processes. Generally speaking, virtual particles are particles which participate in a process but do not appear at the process's start and end. They get created, do something, and then annihilated during the process.