ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the strong interactions that operate between quarks inside baryons, and between baryons inside nuclei. Strong interactions are shown to arise from interactions involving the exchange of massless force carriers known as gluons. The theory of the strong interaction is known as quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and arises due to quarks and gluons possessing a quality known as colour charge which comes in one of three varieties. Baryons, antibaryons, and mesons are colour neutral, but quarks and gluons have a net colour charge and so cannot escape to large distances. Instead they experience confinement inside other more stable particles. The strength of the strong interaction decreases as energy increases.
