Gauge boson certain atoms. The Standard Model of particle physics recognizes four kinds of gauge bosons: photons, which carry the electromagnetic interaction; W and Z bosons, which carry the weak interaction; and gluons, which carry the strong interaction. Isolated gluons do not occur because they are color-charged and subject to color confinement. In a quantized gauge theory, gauge bosons are quanta of the gauge fields. Consequently, there are as many gauge bosons as there are generators of the gauge field. In quantum electrodynamics, the gauge group is "U"(1); in this simple case, there is only one gauge boson. In quantum chromodynamics, the
Technicolor (physics) "M", and the coupling of quarks and leptons to the new particles must be suppressed relative to their coupling to the gauge bosons. This is the case with technicolor, so long as the lightest technivector mesons, "ρ" and "a", are heavier than 200–300 GeV. The "S"-parameter is sensitive to all new physics at the TeV scale, while "T" is a measure of weak-isospin breaking effects. The "U"-parameter is generally not useful; most new-physics theories, including technicolor theories, give negligible contributions to it. The "S" and "T"-parameters are determined by global fit to experimental data including "Z"-pole data from LEP at