Is there some explanation to this ? How does the sending of particles by particles attract other particles ?

[Eldad Eshel]

How does the sending of particles by particles attract other particles ? For example electrons sending photons or virtual photons to a proton, or quarks sending gluons to each other.

[Strange]

This is one of the best non-technical explanations of this I have seen: https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/

 

"The best way to approach this concept, I believe, is to forget you ever saw the word “particle” in the term. A virtual particle is not a particle at all."

[swansont]

The virtual particle can have a momentum in either direction

 

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/virtual_particles.html

[Eldad Eshel]

Basically there is a force and the virtual particles are the quanta of this force. Is this correct ?

[ajb]

Basically there is a force and the virtual particles are the quanta of this force. Is this correct ?

 

They are related to the quanta of the field that 'carries' the force. For example, photons are the quanta of the electromagentic field. Virtual means that they are off mass-shell, which means that these particles do not satisfy the classical equations of motion for relativistic particles.

[Enthalpy]

A propagating photon, with a real wave vector k, brings an electric field that moves. When the field is immobile, or in near-field, you can interpret it as a photon with an imaginary wave vector k.

 

Adding the idea of photon to near or static electric fields isn't fertile. It's more a means to offer a homogen theory and vocabulary (photons, but then virtual) to a theory (electromagnetism) that works both for propagating and standing waves. Intellectually interesting.

 

Whether the near-field is quantized... Someone proposed an experiment here, but failed to propose figures that support his claim, which look difficult from his qualitative description. Though, I feel the proposed experiment looks far better if changing radically some parameters, and I dearly wish he would come back with better explanations and experimental results - something we can make a scientific opinion about.

 

At least when light couples from one guide to an other by evanescent wave, the idea of photon keeps some merit where the photon is virtual, that is, in the coupling medium.