Although weak force is considered one of the four fundamental forces, at high energy, the weak force, and electromagnetic force are unified as a single electroweak force. The unification energy is on the order of 100 GeV. At low energies, electromagnetic and weak interaction appear to be very different. The electroweak theory is very important for modern cosmology. In the history of the universe, during the quark epoch (shortly after the Big Bang), the unified force broke into the two separate forces as the universe cooled.
Abdus Salam, Sheldon Glashow, and Steven Weinberg were awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for contributions to unifying the weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles.
Weak Interaction
The weak interaction or weak force is one of the four fundamental forces and involves the exchange of the intermediate vector bosons, the W and the Z. Since these bosons are very massive (on the order of 80 GeV, the uncertainty principle dictates a range of about 10-18 meters which is less than the diameter of a proton. As a result, the weak interaction occurs only at very small, sub-atomic distances.
The weak interaction is responsible for some nuclear phenomena, such as beta decay, which can be understood as the weak force operating on the quarks within the neutron. One of two down quarks changes into an up quark by emitting a W– boson (carries away a negative charge). The W– boson then decays into a beta particle and an antineutrino. This process is equivalent to how a neutrino interacts with a neutron.
Electromagnetic Interaction
The electromagnetic force is the force responsible for all electromagnetic processes. It acts between electrically charged particles. It is an infinite-ranged force that obeys the inverse square law, much stronger than the gravitational force. Still, neither electricity nor magnetism adds up in the way that gravitational force does. Since there are positive and negative charges (poles), these charges tend to cancel each other out. Electromagnetism includes the electrostatic force acting between charged particles at rest and the combined effect of electric and magnetic forces acting between charged particles moving relative to each other.
The photon, the quantum of electromagnetic radiation, is an elementary particle that is the force carrier of the electromagnetic force. Photons are gauge bosons with no electric charge or rest mass and one spin unit. Common to all photons is the speed of light, the universal constant of physics. In empty space, the photon moves at c (the speed of light – 299 792 458 meters per second).
