color charge

noun

physics

: color entry 1 sense 16

QCD predicts that quarks carry a "color charge," mimicking the familiar electrical charge, which is the source of the force binding them together and is carried by gluons, force particles analogous to the photons of electromagnetism.—

Andrew Watson, Science, 22 Jan. 1999

A blue quark will bind with a red quark and a yellow quark, forming a "white" object that has no color charge. The result may be a proton, a neutron or any one of innumerable three-quark composites called baryons. (Physicists call these charges "color" because all three of them add up to zero, just as the three primary colors add up to white.)—

Frank E. Close et al., Scientific American, November 1998