# Tag Info

9

Virtual particles are not real. They come, as I've said in many answers on this site, from a naive interpretation of Feynman diagrams which should not be taken as an actual, exact description of how the physics works. The actual description of an interaction in the quantum field theory is more complicated than "photons are exchanged". In particular, ...

0

Gauge bosons, such as the photon, are indeed the force carriers of fundamental interactions. The interactions are built upon local gauge symmetries of a Lagrangian. A Lagrangian is a list of interactions in our theory. A symmetry is an operation (such as a rotation) that leaves the Lagrangian invariant. Local gauge symmetries are very restrictive. If we ...

7

I think that the only honest answer to this "how" question is (for the electromagnetic interaction -- the strong and weak interactions are analogous) with a mathematical formula: $$\mathcal{L}_\text{int} = e\overline{\psi} \gamma^\mu A_\mu \psi.$$ This is the term that we add to our model to describe the interaction of electrons ($\overline\psi,\psi$) with ...

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