W boson
Britishnoun
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A subatomic particle with positive electric charge that mediates the weak nuclear force. The W boson has a mass 160,000 times that of the electron. Unlike the other weak force mediator (the Z boson), the W boson changes particles it interacts with into other kinds of particles; for example, in beta-plus decay (a kind of beta decay), an up quark in a proton decays into a down quark by emitting a W boson, changing the proton into a neutron. The W boson itself decays into a positron and an electron neutrino.
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See Table at subatomic particle
Example Sentences
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The hint that the W boson might be extra-hefty came from an analysis of data from a particle detector called D0, which was fed by the now-defunct Tevatron collider at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
From Science Magazine ● Mar. 29, 2023
The mass of the W boson is connected to the masses of other particles, including the infamous Higgs.
From New York Times ● Jun. 13, 2022
And because the W boson has a finite lifetime, according to quantum mechanics, it has an uncertainty in mass.
From Scientific American ● May 11, 2022
And the weak interaction can't occur without help from a W boson.
From Salon ● Apr. 14, 2022
Figure 33.25 In the Tevatron accelerator at Fermilab, protons and antiprotons collide at high energies, and some of those collisions could result in the production of a Higgs boson in association with a W boson.
From Textbooks ● Aug. 12, 2015
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
