W and Z bosons weak-force boson particle. Thus, this interaction requires a Z boson. These bosons are among the heavyweights of the elementary particles. With masses of and , respectively, the W and Z bosons are almost 80 times as massive as the proton – heavier, even, than entire iron atoms. Their high masses limit the range of the weak interaction. By way of contrast, the photon is the force carrier of the electromagnetic force and has zero mass, consistent with the infinite range of electromagnetism; the hypothetical graviton is also expected to have zero mass. (Although gluons are also presumed to have zero
Quark meson. This is analogous to the additive color model in basic optics. Similarly, the combination of three quarks, each with different color charges, or three antiquarks, each with anticolor charges, will result in the same "white" color charge and the formation of a baryon or antibaryon. In modern particle physics, gauge symmetries – a kind of symmetry group – relate interactions between particles (see gauge theories). Color SU(3) (commonly abbreviated to SU(3)) is the gauge symmetry that relates the color charge in quarks and is the defining symmetry for quantum chromodynamics. Just as the laws of physics are independent of