W and Z bosons
Bosones W y Z
- Date
- 1983 · confidence high
- Place
- CERN, Geneva, Switzerland (SppS collider, UA1 and UA2 experiments)
- Credited to
- Carlo Rubbia; Simon van der Meer; UA1 and UA2 Collaborations
- People
- 👤 Carlo Rubbia1934–👤 Simon van der Meer1925–2011
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
By converting the SPS into a proton-antiproton collider thanks to Van der Meer's stochastic cooling, UA1 and UA2 observe the W (January) and Z (May) bosons with the predicted masses of 80 and 91 GeV. The mediators of the weak force exist.
Nobel Prize for Rubbia and Van der Meer in 1984.
What it led to
- Confirmation of electroweak unification
- LEP and precision Z physics
- Design of the LHC
- Search for the Higgs boson
Built on
- Electroweak unification1961-1968
- Weak neutral currents1973
- Electroweak theory
- Accumulated antiprotons (AA)
Made possible
- Stochastic cooling of beams
- Hadron colliders