Feynman Field (1 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. First edition, complete journal issue in original printed wrappers, of this theoretical study of quark and gluon jets, which arise from cascade processes in which each quark and gluon produced in a collision turns into a rapid stream (i.e. a jet) of hadrons. The analysis uses quantum chromodynamics, and in particular its property of asymptotic freedom (the vanishing of interaction between quarks having high relative momentum). "Feynman left the question of whether his partons were merely another name for already proposed quarks, or something completely different, to be answered by experimentalists. As it turned out, partons could include the yet to be introduced gluons as well. With the discovery of asymptotic freedom and the proposal of describing nuclear forces by an underlying gauge field theory called Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), partons came to be increasingly identified with quarks and gluons, and that clarified several aspects of the parton model. Today physicists have a more sophisticated understanding of partons as the constituents of hadrons - experimental observations are consistent with only half of the momentum of a hadron being carried by the constituent quarks (and quark-antiquark pairs from the sea); the other half is carried by the gluons, the gauge field quanta of QCD. In later years, Feynman increasingly used the language of quarks and gluons for hard processes, such as quark and gluon jet production, a phenomenon that was predicted by him. In his words [in the present paper], 'the more we were guided by the principles of QCD, the better the things fitted, and the better were thepredictions.' Here at last was evidence enough for him that nature required the identification of partons withquarks and gluons!" (Dhar at eal., The Science and Legacy of Richard Phillips Feynman). Large 8vo, pp. [ii], 3061-3522. Original printed wrappers.