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How is charge "stored" if there is no internal structure?

releseabe
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    The charge is not stored like a fluid is stored in a container. It is a fundamental property of the particle. – John Rennie May 01 '21 at 10:43
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    okay, if it is a fundamental property which can assume one of two values, does that get represented in a particle that has no structure? – releseabe May 01 '21 at 10:51
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    Particles and antiparticles are effectively different quantum fields and have different values for the fundamental property we call charge. So it is not the case that particle can have two different properties for the charge. A particle has one, and only one, value for the charge and particles and antiparticles have different charges because they are different particles. – John Rennie May 01 '21 at 11:58
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    This is a bit of an over simplification because particles and antiparticles are sort of different fields and sort of the same fields. If you're interested there is a nice explanation here. – John Rennie May 01 '21 at 11:59
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    Well, the proton has structure, and its charge is stored in the quarks inside it which don't have structure. And if those were seen to have structure, like the electron, it would be turtles all the way down. What kind of explanation could be meaningful for you? – Cosmas Zachos May 01 '21 at 13:12
  • Where is your name as a person stored? It is possible for a property not to be susceptible of being "stored." That's what I would expect of gauge charges, as the Poincaré group doesn't even "touch" them. – joigus May 01 '21 at 13:49

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The thing we describe as charge is a coupling constant between two quantum fields. All elementary particles are described by a quantum field, and for a quantum field the charge is the strength of the interaction with the photon quantum field. So it is a fundamental property of the field, not some variable that needs storing.

I suspect the confusion has arisen because electrons and positrons are described by different quantum fields and those fields have different values for the charge. It is not the case that there is one single field and we have to somehow store the value of the charge differently for particles and antiparticles.

John Rennie
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How is charge "stored" if there is no internal structure?

One has to realize that physics is the tabulation of observations in nature using mathematical models, which are called theories, by imposing on the models extra axioms called laws , postulates, principles . The theories are validated if they can predict new observations. And these physics theories are valid in specific regions of the variables, not for all space and all time.

Electrons and positrons belong to the quantum mechanical frame , which, present day mainstream physics postulates is the underlying frame from which all other theories emerge in the appropriate limits.

Observations and data since last century, have solidified at present to the standard model of particle physics where it is axiomatically assumed that the elementary particles (and corresponding antiparticles) are point particles with the assigned charge in the table.

Axiomatic means that "there can be no question", the theory hangs together assuming the axioms are true. If it is a bad theory, it will fail in predicting new data and observations, BUT the standard model is continually validated by new data.

If electrons lack internal structure, how are there also positrons?

All elementary particles in the table lack internal structure and all charged ones have an antiparticle with the same mass and the negative charge. It is an observationally validated fact .

It may be that in the future , people working on deterministic theories that attempt to fit the same data as the quantum mechanical theories, but give internal structure to what are considered point particles now, may succeed. BUT the new theories must embed the successes of quantum mechanics in modelling nature, and either use similar axioms for charge for elementary internal constituents, or have in the theory a mechanism for generating charge. At present the charge of elementary particles is assigned axiomatically, in order to fit data and observations. That is why the positron has the opposite charge of the electron.

anna v
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  • The last paragraph is good. It shows that scientists can also think outside the box when it comes to fundamental questions. But that is rare. – HolgerFiedler May 02 '21 at 08:12