The Energy Spectra of Cosmic Ray Protons, the Origin of Gluons, and the Mechanism of Baryon Generation

For the past sixty years, the generation of hadrons has been dealt with through a framework of theories devised to describe the so-called Strong interactions. About two years ago, the author put forward an essentially quantum electrodynamical model for the same purpose. The present paper contains the latest development in the interpretation of those results, and we reached a point where a bridge can be extended to existing theories. The main result of our previous work has been the determination of an energetic interval of 2.7 GeV between a "vacuum" parent state and the proton rest-energy. The full interpretation of this finding is that this is the energy advantage (calculated from a Regularization procedure) that stabilizes charge (the baryons) confined in the shape of loops by correlating EM excitations at 3.7 GeV. That is, we have been able to establish that these EM excitations are in fact the Gluons of high-energy physics, and they come straight from relativistic quantum electrodynamics through the Regularization procedure of loop energies. The value 2.7 GeV obtained from Regularization is of the correct magnitude to explain the difference between the strength of Strong and EM interactions (15 versus 1/137). The size of a proton can also be approximately deduced from our arguments.