Electroweak theory

elementary particle transmitting the Higgs field giving particles mass

massive gauge bosons that mediate the weak nuclear interaction

unified description of electromagnetism and the weak interaction

phenomenon in which a neutrino changes lepton flavor as it travels

mechanism in quantum field theory in which spontaneous symmetry breaking causes gauge bosons to acquire mass

In particle physics, the hypercharge (a portmanteau of hyperonic and charge) Y of a particle is a quantum number conserved under the strong interaction. The concept of hypercharge provides a single charge operator that accounts for properties of isospin, electric charge, and flavour. The hypercharge is useful to classify hadrons; the similarly named weak hypercharge has an analogous role in the electroweak interaction.

quantum number relating the electric charge and the third component of weak isospin

quantum number of elementary particles

Nuclear physics experiment on conservation of parity in weak interactions

weak force particle interaction

3×3 unitary matrix relating the mass eigenbasis of the three generations of quarks to the basis under which the weak interactions diagonalize

interaction in particle physics

physical model in which electroweak symmetry is broken by a gauge-theoretic mechanism (instead of a Higgs boson)

electroweak coupling constant describing the position of the electromagnetic U(1) within the electroweak gauge group; the arccosine of the W-boson/Z-boson mass ratio

one way that particles can interact with the weak force

thumb|right|300px|An example of a saddle point (in red) on a simple function. A sphaleron ( "slippery") is a static (time-independent) solution to the electroweak field equations of the Standard Model of particle physics, and is involved in certain hypothetical processes that violate baryon and lepton numbers. Such processes cannot be represented by perturbative methods such as Feynman diagrams, and are therefore called non-perturbative. Geometrically, a sphaleron is a saddle point of the electroweak potential (in infinite-dimensional field space).

one-loop Feynman diagram in which a quark temporarily changes flavor (via a W or Z loop) and the flavor-changed quark engages in some tree interaction

energy scale at which the weak and electromagnetic interactions merge