Fundamental interaction The gravitational force is attributed to the curvature of spacetime, described by Einstein's general theory of relativity. The other three are discrete quantum fields, and their interactions are mediated by elementary particles described by the Standard Model of particle physics. Within the Standard Model, the strong interaction is carried by a particle called the gluon, and is responsible for quarks binding together to form hadrons, such as protons and neutrons. As a residual effect, it creates the nuclear force that binds the latter particles to form atomic nuclei. The weak interaction is carried by particles called W and Z bosons,
Technicolor (physics) and leptons, giving them their observed masses. (In general, electroweak-eigenstate fermions are not mass eigenstates, so this process also induces the mixing matrices observed in charged-current weak interactions.) In technicolor, something else must generate the quark and lepton masses. The only natural possibility, one avoiding the introduction of elementary scalars, is to enlarge "G" to allow technifermions to couple to quarks and leptons. This coupling is induced by gauge bosons of the enlarged group. The picture, then, is that there is a large "extended technicolor" (ETC) gauge group "G" ⊃ "G" in which technifermions, quarks, and leptons live in the