weak interaction

American  

noun

Physics.

1. the interaction between elementary particles and the intermediate vector bosons that carry the weak force from one particle to another.

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weak interaction British  

noun

1. Also called: weak nuclear interaction.   weak nuclear force.  physics an interaction between elementary particles that is responsible for certain decay processes, operates at distances less than about 10 ^–15 metres, and is 10 ¹² times weaker than the strong interaction. The weak interaction and electromagnetic interactions are now described by the unifying electroweak theory See interaction electroweak interaction

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weak interaction Scientific  

1. See weak force

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Etymology

Origin of weak interaction

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

The prizewinners studied weak-force interactions at high energies by creating a beam of neutrinos, which do not interact through the strong force but do so by the weak interaction.

From Washington Post

This weak interaction does not perturb the tunneling.

From Scientific American

To be clear, we are certainly not the first to connect homochirality with the weak interaction.

From Scientific American

But how did the weak interaction that was, among other things, responsible for the decay of Murray’s “strange particles” actually work?

From Scientific American

For this reason, the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 involved decays only to vector bosons: photons from the electromagnetic interaction and weak vector bosons from the weak interaction.

From Nature