Bosons
There are four fundamental forces of nature:
- electromagnetism
- gravity
- strong interaction
- weak interaction
These four fundamental forces exist between fermions (quarks and leptons). They arise from the exchange of bosons. Bosons are the 'force carrying' or 'force-mediating' particles.
If a fermion, such as a quark or lepton produces a boson, which is then taken in by another fermion, then a force exists between the two fermions.
The Higgs boson is responsible for the mass of objects. The Higgs boson was proposed by British Physicist Peter Higgs and others in 1964 but was not confirmed until July 2012.
| Force | Boson | Source | Strength (relative to the strong force in the nucleus) | Range (metres) |
| Electromagnetism | Photon | Charge | \(10^{-2}\) | Infinite |
| Gravity | Graviton | Mass | \(10^{-39}\) | Infinite |
| Strong | Gluons | Colour | \(1\) | \(10^{-15}\) |
| Weak | \(W^{+}, W^{-}, Z\) | Weak charge | \(10^{-5}\) | \(10^{-18}\) |
| Force | Electromagnetism |
|---|---|
| Boson | Photon |
| Source | Charge |
| Strength (relative to the strong force in the nucleus) | \(10^{-2}\) |
| Range (metres) | Infinite |
| Force | Gravity |
|---|---|
| Boson | Graviton |
| Source | Mass |
| Strength (relative to the strong force in the nucleus) | \(10^{-39}\) |
| Range (metres) | Infinite |
| Force | Strong |
|---|---|
| Boson | Gluons |
| Source | Colour |
| Strength (relative to the strong force in the nucleus) | \(1\) |
| Range (metres) | \(10^{-15}\) |
| Force | Weak |
|---|---|
| Boson | \(W^{+}, W^{-}, Z\) |
| Source | Weak charge |
| Strength (relative to the strong force in the nucleus) | \(10^{-5}\) |
| Range (metres) | \(10^{-18}\) |
Many of these particles do not normally exist but can be produced by high energy events such as happen in particle colliders or during the formation of stars etc.
Every one of the particles shown above also have antimatter 'anti-particles'. These will annihilate each other to produce a boson.