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  Can the weak force be considered residual?

+ 2 like - 0 dislike
513 views asked Jan 23, 2022 in Open problems by Bittybong (10 points) [ no revision ]

Are you familiar with the term "preon", referring to particles more elementary than those of the standard model?

This proposal would seem to require a preon model, since a residual force, as I understand it, requires a structure bound together by a more fundamental force. The residual force is then an indirect manifestation of that more fundamental force, felt outside the bound structure. The main example is the van der Waals interaction. 

From this perspective, models have undoubtedly been proposed in which preons are bound together by some "hypercolor" force or forces, with the weak interaction between standard model fermions being a residue of these hypercolor interactions. 

The main challenge that such models face, is that preon composites will tend to be massive (for the same reasons that baryons are massive), but they need to be light in order to play the role of standard model fermions. For more on this, perhaps see "'t Hooft anomaly matching". 

@MitschelPorter nice answer!

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