Electroweak interaction

The Standard Model interaction that unifies electromagnetism and the weak interaction. At low energies, symmetry breaking makes them appear as distinct forces mediated by different particles.

Electroweak symmetry breaking: The process by which the Higgs field gives mass to the W and Z bosons while leaving the photon massless. It turns the unified electroweak gauge fields into the distinct low-energy carriers.
Gauge theory: A field theory whose descriptions are invariant under specified local symmetry transformations. The electroweak interaction is built from local gauge symmetry.
Sheldon Glashow: Theoretical physicist who developed an early gauge theory unifying electromagnetic and weak interactions. His 1961 model established a key framework for electroweak unification.
Neutral current: A weak interaction in which a neutrino or other fermion exchanges a Z boson without changing its electric charge. Its discovery provided a key prediction-based test of electroweak unification.
Quantum electrodynamics: The quantum field theory of electromagnetic interactions between charged particles and photons. It describes the low-energy electromagnetic sector that emerges from the electroweak theory.
Higgs mechanism: A mechanism in which interactions with a nonzero Higgs field give mass to some gauge bosons. It gives the W and Z bosons mass, distinguishing weak interactions from electromagnetism.
Weak isospin: A quantum number that organizes left-handed fermions into representations of the weak SU(2) symmetry. It determines how matter fields couple to the SU(2) part of the electroweak theory.
Abdus Salam: Theoretical physicist who independently developed the electroweak theory with Steven Weinberg. His work helped establish the unified theory that received experimental confirmation.
Gargamelle experiment: A CERN bubble-chamber experiment that reported evidence for weak neutral currents in 1973. Its observations supplied the first compelling experimental evidence for neutral-current interactions.
Quantum chromodynamics: The quantum field theory of the strong interaction, based on color charge and the gauge group SU(3). It is the other gauge sector of the Standard Model, not unified with electroweak interactions.

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