Future Prospects for Finding Weak Bosons

The Cern proton-antiproton collider is due to come into operation in the second half of 1981. This will provide a total centre of mass energy of 540 GeV with a design luminosity of 10³⁰ cm^-2 s^-1, sufficient to produce easily detectable rates of charged and neutral weak intermediate bosons, W^± and Z⁰. The bosons are produced in the elementary collisions of quarks with antiquarks for which a well understood theoretical description exists. Two experiments are being prepared that are optimized towards the detection of these particles through their decay modes Z⁰--> e⁺e^- or μ ⁺μ ^-, W^±--> eν or μ ν . Both detectors incorporate electron and hadron calorimeters that are used to trigger the central track detectors on event candidates having high `transverse energy' deposition as well as to measure the electron energies precisely. One of the experiments has comprehensive muon detection and measurement. Prospects for studying the bosons at other proposed accelerators are mentioned.