Gluon Gluon A gluon () is an elementary particle that acts as the exchange particle (or gauge boson) for the strong force between quarks. It is analogous to the exchange of photons in the electromagnetic force between two charged particles. In layman's terms, they "glue" quarks together, forming hadrons such as protons and neutrons. In technical terms, gluons are vector gauge bosons that mediate strong interactions of quarks in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Gluons themselves carry the color charge of the strong interaction. This is unlike the photon, which mediates the electromagnetic interaction but lacks an electric charge. Gluons therefore participate in
Generation (particle physics) Generation (particle physics) In particle physics, a generation or family is a division of the elementary particles. Between generations, particles differ by their flavour quantum number and mass, but their interactions are identical. There are three generations according to the Standard Model of particle physics. Each generation is divided into two types of leptons and two types of quarks. The two leptons may be classified into one with electric charge −1 (electron-like) and one neutral (neutrino); the two quarks may be classified into one with charge − (down-type) and one with charge + (up-type). The basic features of quark-lepton generation