In physics, asymptotic freedom is a property of some gauge theories that causes bonds between particles to become asymptotically weaker as energy increases, and distance decreases.
Asymptotic freedom is a feature of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the quantum field theory of the nuclear interaction between quarks and gluons, the fundamental constituents of nuclear matter. Quarks interact weakly at high energies, allowing perturbative calculations by DGLAP of cross sections in deep inelastic processes of particle physics; and strongly at low energies, preventing the unbinding of baryons (like protons or neutrons with three quarks) or mesons (like pions with two quarks), the composite particles of nuclear matter.
Asymptotic freedom was discovered by Frank Wilczek, David Gross, and David Politzer, who in 2004 shared the Nobel Prize in physics.
Read more about Asymptotic Freedom: Discovery, Screening and Antiscreening, Calculating Asymptotic Freedom
Famous quotes containing the word freedom:
“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than as a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.”
—Henry David David (1817–1862)