Hi TrickyDicky!
 Quote by TrickyDicky
This could be confusing for newcomers, the fact that the gauge bosons come in real and virtual versions, for instance the W boson is defined in the wikipedia as the particle that as well as the Z boson mediaes the weak force, so the doubt arises as to wether is referring to the virtual W or the real boson W …
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Wikipedia is not reliable on this topic (see post 13 above)
. Stop reading it!
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and when it describes its basic properties it states that "in practice it can be considered to be a virtual particle".
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I think wikipedia means that in practice we can't produce real W and Z … hmm
… that's not really true either.
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So I would like to ask the experts which are the force mediators the virtual gauge bosons or the "real" ones because often it's not very clearly defined.
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Always virtual.
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In case the mediators are virtual bosons, what is the role of the real particles? In the case of the photons it's obvious they are the EM radiation , but what about the W and Z particles? ( I believe the gluon hasn't been found yet)
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Real W and Z buzz around colliding with things just as real photons do … this has nothing to do with the maths of virtual particles "mediating" an interaction.