# Gauge Bosons.

by trv
Tags: bosons, gauge
 P: 77 Quick question. If particles that mediate interactions are called gauge bosons, why isn't Pion considered a gauge boson. I'm pretty sure I've come across a few interactions mediated by it.
 P: 986 I think you could say that pion is a gauge boson of chiral symmetry.
 Sci Advisor HW Helper P: 4,738 yeah, but it has nothing to do with gauge there - rather you would say that it is a goldstone boson.
 Sci Advisor P: 779 Gauge Bosons. gauge bosons also have spin 1, while the goldstone boson is spin 0. it's not right to think of gauge bosons as "particles that mediate interactions" - all particles can "mediate interactions" of a sort. It's called a gauge boson because the field has a "gauge symmetry" (just like the electromagnetic field).
 P: 77 Just realised that the pion is a meson. So I assume now that the two aren't mutually exclusive. I.e. a meson can also be a boson, or at least a goldstone boson.
HW Helper
P: 4,738
 Quote by trv Just realised that the pion is a meson. So I assume now that the two aren't mutually exclusive. I.e. a meson can also be a boson, or at least a goldstone boson.
You are mixing things up..

Boson is the opposite to fermion, a boson has integer spin, a fermion has half-integer spin.

Meson means that it is a strongly interacting particle with two valence quarks (one quark, and one anit-quark)

All Mesons are bosons, but not all bosons are mesons ...
 P: 23 If I remember correctly, pions are the pseudo-goldstone bosons when chiral symmetry is broken.
P: 1,160
 Quote by kuon If I remember correctly, pions are the pseudo-goldstone bosons when chiral symmetry is broken.
I am sure I do not remember it correctly, but it seemed to me that pions were the gauge bosons of the isotopic symmetry group (Yang-Mills fields).

Bob_for_short.