Electroweak interaction

In particle physics, the electroweak interaction is the unified description of two of the
four fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetism and the weak interaction.
Although these two forces appear very different at everyday low energies, the theory
models them as two different aspects of the same force. Above the unification energy, on
the order of 102 GeV, they would merge into a single electroweak force. Thus if it is hot
enough, big bang hot, than Electromagnetic force, and weak force will merge into
Electroweak.

Mathematically, the unification is accomplished under an SU(2) × U(1) gauge group. The
corresponding gauge bosons are the photon of electromagnetism and the W and Z bosons
of the weak force. In the Standard Model, the weak gauge bosons get their mass from the
spontaneous symmetry breaking of the electroweak symmetry from SU(2) × U(1)Y to
U(1)em, caused by the Higgs mechanism (see also Higgs boson). The subscripts are used
to indicate that these are different copies of U(1); the generator of U(1)em is given by Q =
Y/2 + I3, where Y is the generator of U(1)Y (called the hypercharge), and I3 is one of the
SU(2) generators (a component of isospin). The distinction between electromagnetism
and the weak force arises because there is a (nontrivial) linear combination of Y and I3
that vanishes for the Higgs boson (it is an eigenstate of both Y and I3, so the coefficients
may be taken as −I3 and Y): U(1)em is defined to be the group generated by this linear
combination, and is unbroken because it doesn't interact with the Higgs.

For contributions to the unification of the weak and electromagnetic interaction between
elementary particles Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg were
awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979. The existence of the electroweak
interactions was experimentally established in two stages: the first being the discovery of
neutral currents in neutrino scattering by the Gargamelle collaboration in 1973, and the
second in 1983 by the UA1 and the UA2 colaborations that involved the discovery of the
W and Z gauge bosons in proton-antiproton collisions at the converted Super Proton
Synchrotron.

See also
• Fundamental forces
• Formulation of the standard model