particle physics phenomenology In physics, phenomenology is the application of theoretical physics to experimental data by making quantitative predictions based upon known theories. It is related to the philosophical notion of the same name in that these predictions describ ...

, chiral color is a speculative model which extends

quantum chromodynamics In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the study of the strong interaction between quarks mediated by gluons. Quarks are fundamental particles that make up composite hadrons such as the proton, neutron and pion. QCD is a type of ...

(QCD), the generally accepted theory for the strong interactions of

quark A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei ...

s. QCD is a gauge field theory based on a

gauge group A gauge group is a group of gauge symmetries of the Yang–Mills gauge theory of principal connections on a principal bundle. Given a principal bundle P\to X with a structure Lie group G, a gauge group is defined to be a group of its vertical ...

known as color SU(3)_C with an octet of colored

gluon A gluon ( ) is a type of Massless particle, massless elementary particle that mediates the strong interaction between quarks, acting as the exchange particle for the interaction. Gluons are massless vector bosons, thereby having a Spin (physi ...

s acting as the force carriers between a triplet of colored quarks. In Chiral Color, QCD is extended to a gauge group which is SU(3)_L × SU(3)_R and leads to a second octet of force carriers. SU(3)_C is identified with a diagonal subgroup of these two factors. The gluons correspond to the unbroken gauge bosons and the color octet axigluons – which couple strongly to the quarks – are massive. Hence the name is Chiral Color. Although Chiral Color has presently no experimental support, it has the "aesthetic" advantage of rendering the Standard Model more similar in its treatment of the two short range forces, strong and weak interactions. Unlike gluons, the axigluons are predicted to be massive. Extensive searches for axigluons at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

and

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle phys ...

have placed a lower bound on the axigluon mass of about . Axigluons may be discovered when collisions are studied with higher energy at the

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It was built by the CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008, in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists, ...

References

Physics beyond the Standard Model {{particle-stub