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How do we know gluons travel at the speed of light? can this be derived or is it just an assumption based on the similarity to photons?

Qmechanic
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Don Yost
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1 Answers1

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Gluons are massless in the Standard Model, and all massless particles travel at $c$. This is pretty much by definition, but a hand-wavy way to explain it is that a massless particle will be accelerated "infinitely" if given any energy at all, i.e. it will reach the maximum possible velocity $c$ instantly. Don't read too much into that hand-wavy explanation though -- the real answer is that it's the way spacetime is structured.

Eric Smith
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