Range of Forces in Particle Physics
Most recent answer: 07/30/2013
- Mateo (age 22)
Madrid, Spain
By 'infinite-range interaction' I presume that you mean the effective potential falls off as 1/r. Two good examples are the Coulomb and gravitational potentials. Both have zero mass gauge particles and zero charge, the photon and the graviton. An example of a short range force that has non-zero mass gauge particle is that of the weak interaction where the neutral gauge boson, the Z0 is quite massive, 91.2 Gev/c2. The 'Yukawa' potential which was developed to explain the short range of nuclear forces goes as V(r) ~ e-km/r/r where m is the pion mass. So the smaller the mass, the larger the range.
There is probably a much deeper field theoritic reason for this but I don't know it. I'll have to ask one of my local experts.
LeeH
(published on 07/30/2013)