Why can't you isolate a quark?

[questionposter]

You can isolate other charged particles, why not quarks? Can it theoretically be done but we just don't have enough energy? Also, why would any particle not be able to be isolated? Aren't gluons or muons inseparable? Is it the same principal?

Edited January 4, 2012 by questionposter

[swansont]

The force from color charge does not diminish with distance. At some separation distance you will have added enough energy to just create more quarks.

[derek w]

Unless you can find a way of separating quarks without inputting energy,otherwise the energy you input is absorbed and creates new quarks rather than separating quarks.

 

I have another question?What happens if you input another energy to strain the gluon quark bond,but insufficient to create new quarks.What happens to the excess energy,it has nowhere to go,or does it dissipate,or do you then have a higher energy meson?

Edited January 4, 2012 by derek w

[questionposter]

The force from color charge does not diminish with distance. At some separation distance you will have added enough energy to just create more quarks.

 

Isn't that just a theoretical guess at how gluons act though? Plus, don't gluons exchange only at the speed of light? Couldn't you move quarks away with enough energy for not enough gluons traveling away from a quark to hit another quark and travel back in time?

 

Also, so what if other quarks are created, I don't care, I just want 1 isolated quark, and if you need to create other quarks that are bound for that to happen then fine.

Edited January 4, 2012 by questionposter

[swansont]

Isn't that just a theoretical guess at how gluons act though?

 

It's not a guess, it's part of the model and the model works.

 

Plus, don't gluons exchange only at the speed of light? Couldn't you move quarks away with enough energy for not enough gluons traveling away from a quark to hit another quark and travel back in time?

 

?

 

Also, so what if other quarks are created, I don't care, I just want 1 isolated quark, and if you need to create other quarks that are bound for that to happen then fine.

 

If it's bound, it's not isolated. Or, if being bound is not a problem, then I think it's already been done.

[questionposter]

It's not a guess, it's part of the model and the model works.

 

 

 

?

 

 

 

If it's bound, it's not isolated. Or, if being bound is not a problem, then I think it's already been done.

 

Well I mean there's no way to actually measure gluons in any way, all we actually know is that quarks like to stay close together, and if gluon force didn't diminish over distance, why aren't all quarks bound in one massive atom? The gluons should be affecting other quarks as well.

 

Also, I don't care if the process creates other quarks, I just want 1 isolated quark, lets say I want an isolated quark and I don't care what the byproducts are: Don't I have a single quark after enough energy even if there are other quarks that are created? If quarks are created one at a time but adding energy, then why not use that?

Edited January 5, 2012 by questionposter

[immijimmi]

The force from color charge does not diminish with distance. At some separation distance you will have added enough energy to just create more quarks.

 

The strong force? Yes it does, the maximum range is 3 fm. But yeah, the energy required to isolate a quark is enough that it would create more quarks rather than working to isolate the original.

 

Also I dunno how to add another quote but someone said something about light-speed gluon exchange. Doesn't happen because gluons have mass which also happens to be the reason the strong force has limited range.

Edited January 5, 2012 by immijimmi

[questionposter]

The strong force? Yes it does, the maximum range is 3 fm. But yeah, the energy required to isolate a quark is enough that it would create more quarks rather than working to isolate the original.

 

Also I dunno how to add another quote but someone said something about light-speed gluon exchange. Doesn't happen because gluons have mass which also happens to be the reason the strong force has limited range.

 

 

Gluons aren't suppose to have mass, but other than that, I don't care if I get other quarks, I just want 1 isolated quark one way or another. Isn't the conventional process enough to do that? Also how does gluon radius get effected in systems with different types of quarks like more or less massive ones?

[immijimmi]

Gluons aren't suppose to have mass

 

Eeeeeh, it depends. We aren't sure (where ARE we sure?) but most of the evidence points towards gluons having around 0.14 MeV (either MeV or eV) of rest energy. Like I said before, they must have mass to explain the 3 fm limit of the strong force.

 

Also, you can't disregard the extra quarks created by the energy input. The problem is that the quarks that ae created will bond with the original, thus further preventing isolation.

[swansont]

The strong force? Yes it does, the maximum range is 3 fm. But yeah, the energy required to isolate a quark is enough that it would create more quarks rather than working to isolate the original.

 

The interaction between nucleons has a finite range. The interaction between quarks does not drop off. The former is a residual effect of the latter.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_interaction

 

Also, I don't care if the process creates other quarks, I just want 1 isolated quark, lets say I want an isolated quark and I don't care what the byproducts are: Don't I have a single quark after enough energy even if there are other quarks that are created? If quarks are created one at a time but adding energy, then why not use that?

 

Any quark you create is bound to at least one other quark. You will never have a single quark.

[questionposter]

The interaction between nucleons has a finite range. The interaction between quarks does not drop off. The former is a residual effect of the latter.

 

http://en.wikipedia....ong_interaction

 

 

 

Any quark you create is bound to at least one other quark. You will never have a single quark.

 

But then that's two quarks, and since those quarks attract other quarks, they have to take one from an another quark system or, form a bigger proton, or...what?

[DrRocket]

The interaction between nucleons has a finite range. The interaction between quarks does not drop off. The former is a residual effect of the latter.

 

http://en.wikipedia....ong_interaction

 

 

 

And lest folks get the impression that all is known, the no one has yet actually derived the residual strong force among nucleons from the quantum chromodynamics that describes the strong interaction involving quarks and gluons. Nevertheless, it is believed that the theory, in principle, should be able to descrive the residual strong force.

 

Note that not only does the interaction between quarks not drop off with distance, it actually increases with distance, which serves to reinforce the fact that it takes enough energy to separate quarks any significant distance to create a new pair.

Edited January 6, 2012 by DrRocket

[swansont]

But then that's two quarks, and since those quarks attract other quarks, they have to take one from an another quark system or, form a bigger proton, or...what?

 

You create quark/antiquark pairs and form mesons. That's why you get all these particles in particle colliders.

[derek w]

Plus the fact that you input a lot of energy that gets converted into mass.BY the time the particles collide their mass has increased greatly.

[questionposter]

You create quark/antiquark pairs and form mesons. That's why you get all these particles in particle colliders.

 

Ok so what if the quark created doesn't annihilate with it's counterpart?

[swansont]

Ok so what if the quark created doesn't annihilate with it's counterpart?

 

You get a different meson.

[questionposter]

You get a different meson.

 

But isn't the definition of a meson a "quark and anti-quark" system? Plus, if it didn't annihilate, wouldn't it have to be isolated or somehow form a more massive proton or take quarks from another system until there was only one left or etc?

[swansont]

But isn't the definition of a meson a "quark and anti-quark" system? Plus, if it didn't annihilate, wouldn't it have to be isolated or somehow form a more massive proton or take quarks from another system until there was only one left or etc?

 

Yes, but it doesn't have to be the antiquark of that particular meson, so it won't annihilate. It will, however, decay.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mesons#List_of_mesons

[questionposter]

Yes, but it doesn't have to be the antiquark of that particular meson, so it won't annihilate. It will, however, decay.

 

http://en.wikipedia....#List_of_mesons

 

Ok, so a "meson" will decay, but then don't you still have individual quarks?

[swansont]

Ok, so a "meson" will decay, but then don't you still have individual quarks?

 

No. You will get different quarks or annihilation resulting in other particles. From the interaction standpoint, you need the system to be colorless.

[questionposter]

No. You will get different quarks or annihilation resulting in other particles. From the interaction standpoint, you need the system to be colorless.

 

Is it possible to create protons consisting of multiple types of quarks using this meson decay?

[Widdekind]

The force from color charge does not diminish with distance. At some separation distance you will have added enough energy to just create more quarks.

 

gluons, carrying "color", can generate more gluons. And, according to "infra-red slavery" -- the inverse of "asymptotic freedom" -- the color-force is weak, at low-frequencies, which I understand to imply "zero force at 'DC' (f=0)". Thus, could you not, in theory, "draw out strings of glue", by super-slowly separating quarks ? As each "string of glue" stretched to its maximum length of a few fm, the gluon(s) would generate another gluon, lengthening the "string". If so, then, in theory, if you stretched quarks apart super-slowly, e.g. over aeons & aeons, you could super-slowly stretch out a "string" of glue, a little like drawing out a fiber of nylon, from its 'soup'.

 

(In a sci-fi analogy, qualitatively, cp. the quote from Dune, "the slow blade gets through", even when fast strikes encounter hard deflector shields. If you work at super-low frequencies, the quarks barely notice you, only if you try to work quickly does the color force "crack down".)

[swansont]

Is it possible to create protons consisting of multiple types of quarks using this meson decay?

 

I don't think decay would do it, but it might be possible that if three mesons collided you could get two hadrons.

[Widdekind]

According to the Big Bang theory, our universe began in a small, dense, hot state. So, in that early "quark-gluon plasma", the separation distance, between quarks, was small. So, as our universe expanded & cooled, that QGP cooled, "condensing" into "color-less, color-neutral" bound quark groupings, i.e. baryon 'triplets'. Then, as our universe expanded further, those bound quark groupings simply receded from each other, increasingly beyond the reach & range of the Strong 'color' force.

 

I'm trying to say, that all quarks are bound, into groupings, today, because all quarks became bound, into those groupings, billions of years ago, when our universe was tiny. If our universe had, somehow, begun in a very expanded, diffuse state, similar to present epoch, perhaps then, in theory, you could have isolated quarks, "emanating" attractive Strong force-fields, that simply "couldn't reach" the other quarks, quantum-mechanically huge distances away.

 

I'm trying to say, that perhaps the observational fact, that all quarks are bound into tight groupings, today, is itself observational support, for the Big Bang theory, i.e. that our universe began, billions of years ago, in a compact state, within which all quarks were well within the range & reach, of other quarks' Strong-force-fields, so that all quarks emerging from the compact state, had already become bound, into tight groupings (and from which no quarks have ever since been 'isolated') ??

[Widdekind]

Particle physics describes

 

a dynamical system of coupled gluons... the action includes self-couplings of the gluons. The bare mass-less fields are all charged with respect to each other. The confinement conjecture, is that this input theory, of mass-less charged particles, is unstable to a condensation of the vacuum to a state, in which only massive excitations propagate. In such a state, the gluonic flux, around quarks, should form into the tubes needed for linear confinement (Creutz. Quarks, Gluons and Lattices, p.4).

Does that imply, that, de facto, gluons have mass ?