"Gluons (
/ˈɡluːɒnz/; from English glue) are elementary particles that act as the exchange particles (or gauge bosons) for the strong force between quarks, analogous to the exchange of photons in the electromagnetic force between two charged particles."
"Since quarks make up the baryons and the mesons, and the strong
interaction takes place between baryons and mesons, one could say that the color force is the source of the strong interaction, or that the strong interaction is like a residual color force that extends beyond the baryons, for example when protons and neutrons are bound together in a nucleus."
"In technical terms, they are vector gauge bosons that mediate strong interactions of quarks in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Unlike theelectrically neutral photon of quantum electrodynamics (QED), gluons themselves carry color charge and therefore participate in the strong interaction in addition to mediating it, making QCD significantly harder to analyze than QED."