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Equation 9 · Part 1 · The Vacuum Has a History: Symmetry Breaking as Speciation

Symbol Z^0

Z0Z^0
Z0Z^0

What this part means

Z0Z^0 is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.

Its job in the formula

Z0Z^0 is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.

The passage around this formula

…as a component of a gauge boson that previously, being massless like the photon, had no longitudinal mode to have. Three of the electroweak sector’s four generators are broken this way, giving mass to the W+W^+ , W−W^- , and Z0Z^0 ; the fourth, corresponding to the unbroken electromagnetic U(1) , is not, which is why the photon remains massless. Weinberg’s 1967 paper assembled this mechanism into the specific gauge theory of leptons that, combined with the analogous quark sector, became the electroweak part of the…

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Learn the underlying idea

An exponent tells how a base is used in multiplication. In x³, x is the base and 3 is the exponent: x³ = x × x × x.

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Sources cited in the surrounding passage

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