white
Gluons g are the proposed carrier particles for the strong nuclear force, although they are not directly observed. Like quarks, gluons may be confined to systems having a total color of white. Less is known about gluons than the fact that they are the carriers of the weak and certainly of the electromagnetic force. QCD theory calls for eight gluons, all massless and all spin 1. Six of the gluons carry a color and an anticolor, while two do not carry color, as illustrated in Figure 33.22 a . There is indirect evidence of the existence of gluons in nucleons. When high-energy electrons are scattered from nucleons and evidence of quarks is seen, the momenta of the quarks are smaller than they would be if there were no gluons. That means that the gluons carrying force between quarks also carry some momentum, inferred by the already indirect quark momentum measurements. At any rate, the gluons carry color charge and can change the colors of quarks when exchanged, as seen in Figure 33.22 b . In the figure, a red down quark interacts with a green strange quark by sending it a gluon. That gluon carries red away from the down.