Astrophysics (Index) | About |
A gluon is the particle-representation of the strong force, much as the photon is the particle-representation of electromagnetic radiation. As such, they are found within baryons, holding their three quarks together, and in atomic nuclei, holding the baryons together. A gluon is a type of boson, adhering to Bose-Einstein statistics. They have a type of charge, which instead of having two possibilities (plus and minus, for electric charge), have three. The word color is used to indicate this type of charge (it is not actual color, the word is used analogously), with the three charges termed red, green, and blue.