What do strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force act on?
1 Answer
The two nuclear forces act on different particles. The weak force acts on quarks and leptons, while the strong force acts only on quarks.
Explanation:
In the case of the strong force, there is an exchange particle called a gluon that acts only on particles made of quarks that have the property called colour charge which has nothing to do with the familiar notion of colour). This includes both protons and neutrons. The strong force serves to overpower the tremendous electric repulsion that exists within the nucleus, and make it a stable configuration (in most cases). It is very short range, and so is not experienced outside the nucleus.
The weak force is more "universal" It acts on quarks and particles made of quarks, but also acts on the while family of leptons, which consists of electrons, muons, taus, and their neutrinos. The exchange of what are known as "intermediate vector bosons" is what gives rise to this force, and its action is to change the flavour of the quarks, such that a down quark can become an up quark, causing a neutron to become a proton (known as beta decay).
