In a relativistic gauge theory, the vector bosons are naively massless, like the photon, leading to long-range forces.
Because these particles only interact with the weak vector bosons, they are not directly produced at hadron colliders in copious numbers.
They suggested that in addition to the photon, there were three other spin-1 particles, known collectively as massive vector bosons, that carried the weak force.
One was a prediction that the weak force must be transmitted by particles undiscovered up to then, known as weak vector bosons.
The gluon is a vector boson; like the photon, it has a spin of 1.
This length scale would be the distance where a Yukawa force is mediated by the weak vector bosons.
In particle physics, a vector boson is a boson with the spin quantum number equal to 1.
This mechanism generates the masses for the vector bosons and matter fields with no physical degrees of freedom for the Higgs.
Virtual particles may be mesons or vector bosons, as in the example above; they may also be fermions.
The rho mesons were discovered a short time later, and were quickly identified as Sakurai's vector bosons.