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
Exchange operator Such motion is often not carried out in practice. Rather, the operation is treated as a "what if" similar to a parity inversion or time reversal operation. Consider two repeated operations of such a particle exchange: Therefore, formula_1 is not only unitary but also an operator square root of 1, which leaves the possibilities Both signs are realized in nature. Particles satisfying the case of +1 are called "bosons", and particles satisfying the case of −1 are called "fermions". The spin–statistics theorem dictates that all particles with integer spin are bosons whereas all particles with half-integer spin are fermions. The