Strong-interaction theories based on gauge/gravity duality

Article By:

Brodsky, Stanley J. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California.

Last reviewed:2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.YB100081

One of the triumphs of theoretical physics of the twentieth century was the development of quantum electrodynamics (QED), the fundamental theory of electrons and photons. QED describes not only all of electrodynamics, atomic physics, and chemistry with extraordinary precision, but also the basic properties of the electron itself. For example, the electron g factor is correctly predicted by QED to 10 significant figures. The corresponding problem in particle and nuclear physics is to be able to describe the structure and properties of hadrons, such as protons and neutrons, in terms of their fundamental constituents, quarks and gluons. High-energy experiments, such as the deep inelastic electron–proton scattering pioneered at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), which revealed the quark structure of the proton, have shown that the basic elementary interactions of quarks and gluons are well described by a remarkable generalization of QED called quantum chromodynamics (QCD).

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