Force force. Here the strong force acts indirectly, transmitted as gluons, which form part of the virtual pi and rho mesons, which classically transmit the nuclear force (see this topic for more). The failure of many searches for free quarks has shown that the elementary particles affected are not directly observable. This phenomenon is called color confinement. The weak force is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons. Its most familiar effect is beta decay (of neutrons in atomic nuclei) and the associated radioactivity. The word "weak" derives from the fact that the field strength is some
Force carrier Force carrier In particle physics, force carriers or messenger particles or intermediate particles are particles that give rise to forces between other particles. These particles are bundles of energy (quanta) of a particular kind of field. There is one kind of field for every type of elementary particle. For instance, there is an electric field whose quanta are electrons, and an electromagnetic field whose quanta are photons. The force carrier particles that mediate the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions are called gauge bosons. In particle physics, quantum field theories such as the Standard Model describe nature in terms of fields.