W boson

The W boson is a fundamental particle that acts as a carrier of the weak nuclear force, one of the four fundamental forces in nature. It plays a key role in radioactive decay and certain nuclear reactions by mediating interactions between subatomic particles. The W boson is quite heavy—about 80 times the mass of a proton—and exists only briefly before decaying into other particles. Its discovery in the 1980s helped confirm the Standard Model of particle physics, providing crucial insights into how particles interact at the most basic level of matter.