Bosons

In quantum mechanics, bosons are particles that follows Bose–Einstein statistics. Bosons make up one of the two classes of particles, the other being fermions.

The name boson was coined by Paul Dirac to commemorate the contribution of the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose in developing, with Einstein, Bose–Einstein statistics—which theorizes the characteristics of elementary particles.

Examples of bosons include fundamental particles such as :

  • photons, gluons, and 
  • W and Z bosons (the four force-carrying gauge bosons of the Standard Model), the recently discovered Higgs boson, and 
  • the still-theoretical graviton of quantum gravity; 
  • composite particles (e.g. mesons and stable nuclei of even mass number such as deuterium (with one proton and one neutron, mass number = 2), helium-4, or lead-208); and some quasiparticles (e.g. Cooper pairs, plasmons, and phonons).


Important features

An important characteristic of bosons is that their statistics do not restrict the number of them that occupy the same quantum state. 

This property is exemplified by helium-4 when it is cooled to become a superfluid.  

Bosons are also the components of Bose Einstein Condensates (BECs)

The difference between fermions and bosons

Unlike bosons, two identical fermions cannot occupy the same quantum space. Whereas the elementary particles that make up matter (i.e. leptons and quarks) are fermions. The elementary bosons(photons and gluons) are force carriers that function as the 'glue' holding matter together.


Source: Boson. (2015, October 28). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:10, December 13, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Boson&oldid=687836234