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Is it pions or gluons that mediate the strong force between nucleons?

(I'm currently studying particle physics in my physics classes at high school so simple language would be appreciated.)

We have learnt that the proton is the only stable hadron and the neutron has a mean lifetime of approximately 20 minutes. This leads to the question of how nuclei are stable.

As I currently understand it, pions are exchanged between the neutrons and protons which turn the proton into a neutron and the neutron into a proton.

My question is how gluons are involved in this process and what simplifications have been made in my understanding? My initial guess is something to do with quark color.

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    The best short answer to the title question is "Yes". Maybe I'll find time to write a real answer later. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Jan 26 '12 at 17:51
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    There is an effective field theory derivable from QCD that gives you hadrons interacting with pions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiral_perturbation_theory – Zo the Relativist Jan 26 '12 at 17:54
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    This is apparently a popular question with at least two duplicates here: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/9663/is-it-pions-or-gluons-that-mediate-the-strong-force-between-nucleons (exactly the same question) and http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/9661/protons-repulsion-within-a-nucleus (related) – Luboš Motl Jan 26 '12 at 19:38
  • Thanks, @LubošMotl. The scary thing for me is that I made a similar comment on one of those too. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Jan 26 '12 at 22:15

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