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[Phys-l] Mass and Energy



Jack wrote
Sorry, but the physics of gquarks and gluons is considerably more complicated than that. I don't want to get into great detail, ut the
notion "kinetic energy of a quark or gluon inside a proton" may not have much meaning.

The notion of mass of quark could be classifed as follows:
1. Free mass: Mass of isolated quark which is considered to be infinity, hence it is not found to be free in nature. But maybe one day found in higher energy and shorter period of time?
2. Constituent mass: The effective mass of a quark in a proton is about one third of the proton mass, however some may prefer the use of Gell-Mann-Nishijima mass formula.
3. Algebraic mass: Perturbative QCD or Lattice QCD computations using the heavy quark effective theory or non-relativistic quantum chromodynamics…..

Quark mass is a mere theoretical construct depending on how one defines the so-called operational procedure. It can be described as depending on binding energy, kinetic energy or field energy.


Alphonsus