What is Meant by "Charge" for Elementary Particles?

[Rhondazvous]

What is meant by charge? I’ve googled for the answer but all I can find is limited to the atomic level. Objects with a profusion of electrons are negatively charges and negatively charged particles are attracted to positively charged particles. That doesn’t tell me what it means for a positron to be positively charges. When scientist see a positron and a Negatron, what is it about each particle that tells them one is positive and one is negative?

I realize that we live in an electronic world where positrons are considered antimatter. Yet, I feel confused by the idea of a positron having an electric charge. There must be a definition of “charge” that supersedes electricity/electron/elect. I’m trying to think beyond our universal bias to make room for a universe where positrons are the norm and electrons the anti-material. Would an electron have a positric charge or is it possible to define charge without reference to electricity/positricity?

[Alex K]

Purely mathematically, the charge is determined by how a particle behaves under a certain symmetry transformation. It's kind of hard to put into words without doing the maths. In more physics-like terms, electrical charge tells you how much a particle interacts with photons, i.e. light. The sign of the charge (whether it is negative or positive) only shows up when two bodies exchange virtual photons. If they have like charge, the exchange of virtual photons makes them repel, otherwise the virtual photons make them attract.

Negative charge does not have to come from electrons, among the Fermions also the muons and tauons carry -1 elementary charge, as well as the down, strange and bottom quarks all carry negative charge -1/3.

[vorlon13]

I found it illustrative as a child to stick my finger in a light socket



once . . .

[Brian37]

Reminds me of the e joke Sheldon made on Big Bang Theory "A neutron walks into a bar, and asks the bartender "How much for a drink? The bartender responds, "For you, no charge."

[vorlon13]

An Electron walks into a bar and order a drink for the proton. He found her very attractive.

[vorlon13]

and a thought experiment:

imagine 2 new kinds of particles, also with a new kind of charge, one particle that repels both electrons and positrons and the other one that attracts both electrons and positrons.

Do these 2 new particles attract or repel each other ??

[Rhondazvous]

An Electron walks into a bar and order a drink for the proton. He found her very attractive.

Two atoms bump into each other.
First Atom: Are you okay?
Second Atom: No, I lost an electron.
First Atom: Are you sure?
Second Atom: I’m positive.

[Rhondazvous]

and a thought experiment:

imagine 2 new kinds of particles, also with a new kind of charge, one particle that repels both electrons and positrons and the other one that attracts both electrons and positrons.

Do these 2 new particles attract or repel each other ??

It could make an unrequited love story.

[Alex K]

and a thought experiment:

imagine 2 new kinds of particles, also with a new kind of charge, one particle that repels both electrons and positrons and the other one that attracts both electrons and positrons.

Do these 2 new particles attract or repel each other ??

I have trouble cooking up a model containing a particle endowed with a force which repels both electrons and positrons. At first glance it doesn't seem theoretically possible without getting into serious trouble with consistency. I'll think about it some more...

[Meandering Atheist -J-]

What is meant by charge? I’ve googled for the answer but all I can find is limited to the atomic level. Objects with a profusion of electrons are negatively charges and negatively charged particles are attracted to positively charged particles. That doesn’t tell me what it means for a positron to be positively charges. When scientist see a positron and a Negatron, what is it about each particle that tells them one is positive and one is negative?

I realize that we live in an electronic world where positrons are considered antimatter. Yet, I feel confused by the idea of a positron having an electric charge. There must be a definition of “charge” that supersedes electricity/electron/elect.  I’m trying to think beyond our universal bias to make room for a universe where positrons are the norm and electrons the anti-material. Would an electron have a positric charge or is it possible to define charge without reference to electricity/positricity?

I'm going to try to take a swing at the original question.

Electric charge, like that found on electrons and positrons, is one of the four fundamental forces. There's gravity, electromagnetism, weak, and strong force. Asking 'what is electric charge?' is a pretty deep and interesting question; unfortunately there isn't really an answer. We can observe what it does and how it behaves, but there are problems with the intuition of it all. For instance, how do the particles actually interact? How do they interact without coming into contact with each other? This is the unsettling apparent reality of 'action at a distance'.

Defining the positive and negative charges of electrons without referencing electricity would not make much sense, as they are the same force.

Your question about the asymmetry between matter and antimatter is also another great question. There is not any conclusive reason for why we have a universe filled with matter instead of antimatter. If the roles were reversed, we would not notice any change. The interesting part is the asymmetry; we do not yet have a conclusive reason for the apparent dominance of matter over antimatter in the universe. The two leading ideas are that either:
     1. The balance is 50/50, but the universe contains localized pockets of matter or antimatter
     2. There is some sort of matter bias during the formation of matter

EDIT: I should clarify that there are other charges besides that of electrons, like color charge. Also option 1 has mostly been ruled out because we would expect to see evidence of matter and antimatter annihilation between the pockets.