The strong interaction as a research area encompasses theoretical and experimental studies of the fundamental force described by quantum chromodynamics (QCD), which governs the dynamics of quarks and gluons and the structure of hadrons and nuclei. It includes investigations of color confinement, asymptotic freedom, chiral symmetry breaking, and the phase structure of strongly interacting matter, such as the quark–gluon plasma. Methodologically, it spans perturbative QCD at high energies, lattice QCD and effective field theories at low energies, and phenomenology in high-energy collider, fixed-target, and heavy-ion experiments to test and refine the Standard Model’s strong sector.
Trinity's Prof. Stefan Sint, along with collaborators from Germany, Spain and Italy, has published the most precise determination to date of the strong coupling constant. This parameter governs the interactions between quarks ...
General Physics
Jun 15, 2026
0
147
A team of researchers has leveraged a supercomputer at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory to reveal the internal structure of a pion in unprecedented detail. The findings are published in the ...
General Physics
Jun 13, 2026
10
179
Protons and neutrons—the building blocks of matter—belong to a huge class of particles called hadrons. Hadrons are composite particles made of quarks that are bound together by the strong force. They are classified into two ...
General Physics
May 26, 2026
0
26
A tiny discrepancy in particle physics has loomed for decades as an exciting possible crack in one of science's most successful theories, hinting at unknown forces or quantum objects. Now, an international team led by a Penn ...
General Physics
Apr 22, 2026
31
367
Tens of kilometers above Earth's surface, high-energy particles from outer space constantly strike the atmosphere, creating showers of energetic secondary particles that rain down from the sky. Approximately one of these ...
General Physics
Apr 21, 2026
0
14
An international research team of the A1 Collaboration at the Mainz Microtron (MAMI) of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has succeeded in determining the binding energy of the hypertriton with unprecedented precision. ...
General Physics
Apr 20, 2026
0
22
Nearly every object we interact with in our lives has a mass, but where does this mass come from? Modern physics says matter acquires its mass from interaction with a physical vacuum—it is not an empty space, but contains ...
General Physics
Apr 7, 2026
4
150
Dark matter, a type of matter that does not emit, reflect or absorb light, is predicted to account for most of the matter in the universe. As it eludes common experimental techniques for studying ordinary matter, understanding ...
Particle accelerators reveal the heart of nuclear matter by smashing together atoms at close to the speed of light. The high-energy collisions produce a shower of subatomic fragments that scientists can then study to reconstruct ...
General Physics
Mar 26, 2026
0
104
A new independent measurement by the CMS experiment at the LHC is consistent with the existence of the most massive composite particle ever observed, the momentary union of a top quark and its antiquark
General Physics
Mar 26, 2026
0
583
