Emergence of large effective masses of quarks

 

Experiments at high energies showed that quarks which protons and neutrons consist of, are several hundred times lighter than the proton, in accordance with the fundamental theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). On the other hand, at low energies protons and neutrons, as well as other hadrons, behave as if they are built of very different quarks - the so-called constituent quarks with masses of the order of 1/3 of the proton mass. That is, they seem to be some hundred times more massive than the 'fundamental' quarks explaining the experiments in high-energy particle physics. The resolution of this puzzle is that at low energies, QCD is strongly interacting and generates dressed, effectively massive quarks through a nonperturbative effect called dynamical chiral symmetry breaking.