boson

boson, subatomic particle with integral spin (i.e., angular momentum in quantum-mechanical units of 0, 1, etc.) that is governed by the Bose-Einstein statistics (q.v.). Bosons include mesons (e.g., pions and kaons), nuclei of even mass number (e.g., helium-4), and the particles required to embody the fields of quantum field theory (e.g., photons and gluons). Bosons differ significantly from a group of subatomic particles known as fermions in that there is no limit to the number...