Scientists seeking to explore the teeming microcosm of quarks and gluons inside protons and neutrons report new data delivered by particles of light. The light particles, or photons, come directly ...

Nuclear physicists may have finally pinpointed where in the proton a large fraction of its mass resides. A recent experiment has revealed the radius of the proton's mass that is generated by the ...

Very soon after the Big Bang, the universe enjoyed a brief phase where quarks and gluons roamed freely, not yet joined up into hadrons such as protons, neutrons and mesons. This state, called a ...

A proton’s valence quarks (blue, red, and green), quark-antiquark pairs, and gluons (springs). Scalar gluon activity (pink) extends beyond the electric charge radius (orange) that surrounds the ...

The internal structure of a proton, with quarks, gluons, and quark spin shown. The nuclear force acts like a spring, with negligible force when unstretched but large, attractive forces when stretched ...

Combinations of three quarks (RGB) or three antiquarks (CMY) are colorless, as are appropriate combinations of quark/antiquark pairs. The gluon exchanges that keep these entities stable are quite ...