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Color Charge

Quarks and gluons possess color charge, an intrinsic property with three quantum numbers (red, green, blue) analogous to electric charge.
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The statement of the theorem

Let G=SU(3)cG = SU(3)_c be the color symmetry group. The color charge is represented by the generators TaT^a of GG, where a=1,23,13a=1, \frac{2}{3}, \frac{1}{3} correspond to the three color components (red, green, blue). For a quark field ψ\psi, the color charge operator is given by the matrix representation λc=Taτa2\lambda_c = T^a \frac{\tau^a}{2}, where τa\tau^a are the Pauli matrices acting on the color space, and the charge eigenvalue is proportional to the expectation value of TaT^a in the state ∣color⟩|\text{color}\rangle.