Is QCD an extension of QED, or is QCD a “rival” of QED?
In: Physics
Quantum electrodynamics is the theory that quantizes the electromagnetic interaction by introducing the field of photons. This affects particles with charge.
Quantum chromodynamics is the theory that quantizes the strong interaction by introducing gluons. This affects quarks.
These are separate theories because they model interactions that occur on different scales, but they (along with quantum flavorudynamics for the weak interaction) can be unified to form the Standard Model by combining terms in the Lagrangian in a sense.
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