The Z Boson

<p><strong>The Field Guide to Particle Physics <br></strong><a href="https://pasayten.org/the-field-guide-to-particle-physics">https://pasayten.org/the-field-guide-to-particle-physics</a><br>©2021 The Pasayten Institute <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">cc by-sa-4.0</a><br>The definitive resource for all data in particle physics is the Particle Data Group: <a href="https://pdg.lbl.gov/">https://pdg.lbl.gov</a>.</p><p>The Pasayten Institute is on a mission to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers! <a href="http://pasayten.org/heysean">Get in touch</a>.</p><p><strong>The Z Boson<br></strong><br>Every once in a while, without warning, an <a href="https://pasayten.org/the-field-guide-to-particle-physics/electron">electron</a> is accelerated seemingly out of nowhere. Ripped from whatever atom, molecule or metal it had been associated with, it suddenly becomes it’s own ballistic particle. When this happens, a Z-boson has almost certainly been involved.</p><p>With a mass of 91.2 GeV, the Z boson is the slightly heavier cousin of the <a href="https://pasayten.org/the-field-guide-to-particle-physics/w-boson">W-bosons</a>. Together, W+, W- and Z0 all  mediate the weak nuclear force. That is to say, particles with a weak charge toss them back and forth as a way to communicate that force. The W’s are famous for radioactive beta decay. The Z’s presence is more subtle. But all three are <a href="https://pasayten.org/the-field-guide-to-particle-physics/w-boson">strictly left handed</a>.</p><p><br>Unlike the W’s, the Z boson has no electric charge. Like the photon, the Z boson is its own antiparticle. In many ways, the Z-boson is very similar to the <a href="https://pasayten.org/the-field-guide-to-particle-physics/photon">photon</a>. They share a common origin. They are quite literally mixed up with the Higgs boson.</p><p>The Z’s don’t hang around very long. Being so heavy, they decay into all kinds of things: quarks, muons, neutrini, you name it! Like the W’s, they appear for somet