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A functional analytic method is developed, which gives rise to a canonical decomposition of the Dirac solution space into two subspaces, even in a time-dependent situation.
The theory called the Standard Model represents the state of the art of our understanding of the physics of elementary particles and their interactions. It is, as explained in the following chapters, a gauge theory, that is, a theory in which the interactions among the matter constituents are determined by gauge invariance and carried by gauge bosons. Everything else in physics (except perhaps gravitational phenomena at very high energies), as well as everything in the Universe, from chemistry to biology, is but an application (admittedly, very convoluted in most cases) of this model.
Even though the physics of coupled two-state systems is something we learn about in a first class on quantum mechanics, it is still a fascinating subject and, as a matter of fact, important in the study of particle physics.
The strong interactions are described in the Standard Model by the gauge theory of the color group SU(3)c. Matter is made of “colored” quarks interacting through the exchange of gluons, the gauge fields associated with the color group. The theory is called QCD by analogy to QED, with the electric charge replaced by the color (chromo) charges.