Abstract
Fractional electric charges for quarks are one of the most striking aspects of the Standard Model of particle physics, and are well supported by QED phenomenology. However, it is possible to argue that the fractional nature of the charges is a reflection of the properties of the strong, rather than electric, interaction, and that a different structure is needed at a more fundamental level. In this sense, the fractional charges could be seen as ‘emergent’, as in the parallel case of the fractional quantum Hall effect. Using the original coloured quark model, first proposed in 1964 and never disproved by experiment, we gain new insights into two areas which have proved to be problematic for physics: the theory of Grand Unification and the application of the Higgs mechanism to the creation of fermion masses.
Peter Rowlands