Quantum chromodynamics possess an additional SU(3) gauge degree of freedom, later called color charge. Han and Nambu noted that quarks might interact via an octet of vector gauge bosons: the gluons. Since free quark searches consistently failed to turn up any evidence for the new particles, and because an elementary particle back then was "defined" as a particle which could be separated and isolated, Gell-Mann often said that quarks were merely convenient mathematical constructs, not real particles. The meaning of this statement was usually clear in context: He meant quarks are confined, but he also was implying that the strong interactions could
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