On mass and matter

Abstract

The visible Universe is largely characterised by a single mass scale, namely, the proton mass, m_p. Contemporary theory suggests that m_p emerges as a consequence of gluon self-interactions, which are a defining characteristic of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of strong interactions in the Standard Model. However, the proton is not elementary. Its mass appears as a corollary of other, more basic emergent phenomena latent in the QCD Lagrangian, e.g. generation of nuclear-size gluon and quark mass-scales, and a unique effective charge that may describe QCD interactions at all accessible momentum scales. These remarks are explained herein, and focusing on the distribution amplitudes and functions of π and K mesons, promising paths for their empirical verification are elucidated. Connected therewith, in anticipation that production of J/ψ-mesons using π and K beams can provide access to the gluon distributions in these pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone modes, predictions for all π and K distribution functions are provided at the scale ζ=m_J/ψ.