gluonerna

Gluonerna, or gluons in English, are the gauge bosons of the strong nuclear force in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). They mediate interactions between quarks by carrying color charge. In the SU(3) color gauge symmetry of QCD, there are eight independent gluon states corresponding to the eight generators of the group. Unlike photons, gluons themselves carry color charge and can interact with each other, leading to complex dynamics such as color confinement.

Gluons are massless and have spin 1. They do not appear as free particles in nature; color confinement prevents the isolation of a single gluon, and free gluons are not observed under ordinary conditions. In high-energy processes, quarks and gluons are produced and then hadronize into jets of color-neutral particles; gluons contribute to these jets and to the internal structure of hadrons like protons and neutrons.

The strength of the strong interaction, described by the coupling constant alpha_s, decreases at high energies (asymptotic freedom) but increases at low energies, making analytic calculations challenging. Lattice QCD provides nonperturbative tools to study gluon dynamics, including the search for glueballs, bound states composed solely of gluons.

Historically, gluons were proposed as part of QCD in the 1970s and have since become a central element of the Standard Model. In Swedish discourse, they are referred to as gluonerna.