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In physics, the electroweak theory presents a unified description of two of the four fundamental forces of nature: electromagnetism and the weak nuclear
force. Although these two forces appear very different at everyday low energies, the theory models them as two different
aspects of the same force. Above the unification energy, on the order of 102 GeV, they would merge into a single electroweak force.
Mathematically, the unification is accomplished under an SU(2)×U(1) gauge
group. The corresponding gauge bosons are the photon of electromagnetism and the W and Z bosons of the
weak force. In the Standard Model, the weak gauge bosons get their
mass from the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the electroweak symmetry
- SU(2)×U(1)
caused by the Higgs mechanism.
For contributions to the unification of the weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles Sheldon
Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979.
See also: fundamental force, SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1)
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