Weightons

Weightons are a hypothetical class of elementary particles proposed in speculative physics and science fiction to mediate or modulate weight. In models that invoke weightons, these bosons couple weakly to mass-energy and to background fields, producing an additional force that can alter the effective weight of a body without changing its inertial mass. Weightons are often envisioned as having small or zero rest mass, enabling potentially long-range effects, and as carrying no electric charge. The force they mediate is typically described as distinct from the familiar gravitational interaction, or as a modification of gravity itself through a scalar or vector weight field. Depending on the variant, weightons may interact via Yukawa-type couplings with standard matter or couple to baryon number, and their effect on weight can depend on environment, composition, or external conditions.

Origins: The term weighton does not belong to established particle physics but has appeared in speculative discussions and science fiction as a thought experiment about how weight might arise or be controlled. There is no experimental evidence for weightons, and any proposal faces constraints from tests of the equivalence principle, precision gravimetry, and inverse-square law measurements.

Implications and uses: In fiction, weightons enable devices that increase or reduce weight, create artificial gravity, or produce weightless zones. In theoretical exercises, they serve to illustrate how additional long-range fields could influence measurements of weight without changing inertial mass.

See also: Higgs boson, graviton (hypothetical), scalar field, fifth force, equivalence principle, inertial mass.