On mass and matter

Abstract

AbstractThe visible Universe is largely characterised by a single mass scale, namely, the proton mass,mp. Contemporary theory suggests thatmpemerges as a consequence of gluon self-interactions, which are a defining characteristic of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of strong interactions in the Standard Model. However, the proton is not elementary. Its mass appears as a corollary of other, more basic emergent phenomena latent in the QCD Lagrangian, e.g. generation of nuclear-size gluon and quark mass-scales, and a unique effective charge that may describe QCD interactions at all accessible momentum scales. These remarks are explained herein, and focusing on the distribution amplitudes and functions ofπandKmesons, promising paths for their empirical verification are elucidated. Connected therewith, in anticipation that production ofJ/ψ-mesons usingπandKbeams can provide access to the gluon distributions in these pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone modes, predictions for allπandKdistribution functions are provided at the scaleζ=mJ/ψ.