For the W3 and B bosons, what is their hypercharge and isospin?

  • #1
Frigorifico9
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TL;DR Summary
The values of Hypercharge and Isospin for the W3 and B bosons of the Electroweak force
In wikipedia you can find this neat tables with the hypercharge and isospin of a ton of particles and bosons.

Screen Shot 2021-11-14 at 12.42.27 PM.png
Screen Shot 2021-11-14 at 12.42.35 PM.png


What I want to know is: what are the values of Isospin and Hypercharge for the W3 and B bosons?

Now, I know electroweak unification, don't worry about that. I know W3 and B got mixed together according to the weak mixing angle to create the Z and the photon. I understand that part.

My point is that those bosons must have some values of hypercharge and isospin and I want to know what they are. I suspect they are 0 because the Z and the photon both have isospin and hypercharge of 0, but maybe not, that's one of the reasons I'm curious about this.

Thanks

Edit:

I figured it out. In case you are googling this same question and you came across this post here it is:

Both indeed have 0 hypercharge and 0 isospin. The difference is that W3 couples with left handed particles or right handed antiparticles according with their isospin and changes their momentum. Meanwhile B couples with any particle according to their hypercharge and also changes their momentum.

I was confused about B coupling with particles according to their hypercharge because it changes with handedness, but it's not that weird, you just have to remember that no particle is solely right or left handed, rather their wavefunction is a sum of both possibilities. Also B doesn't change the hypercharge of any particle but it doesn't have to, the photons transfer momentum between charged particles without itself having electric charge
 
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Answers and Replies

  • #2
Orodruin
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They have the same quantum numbers as the photon and Z boson. If they did not, they could not mix to form those states.
 
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