Question

What is the difference between a meson and a boson?

Answer 1

Hint: To understand the difference between a meson and a boson, we need to first understand the meaning of quark and antiquark. For every quark flavour, there is always a corresponding antiparticle which is known as an antiquark. This antiquark differs from the quark only in some of the properties like electric charge. They have an equal magnitude but the sign is always opposite..

Complete step by step answer:
The basic difference between a meson and a boson is:

Meson	Boson
Meson is basically a type of a Hadron and it is also a composite particle.	Boson is basically a particle which has a symmetric under exchange wave function and integer spin,
Meson is made up of quarks or antiquarks	Boson is not made up of quarks or antiquarks.
Mesons are never elementary in nature.	Boson are elementary in nature.
A meson has a symmetric wave under the integral spin.	Boson has an antisymmetric wave under exchange and half integer spins.

Bosons have subtypes such as scalar or vector bosons. The classification of Bosons on the basis of their spin is:
(1)  Scalar Boson: A scalar boson does not have a spin and is assigned a spin equal to zero. The best example of a scalar boson is the Higgs Boson. (2) Vector Boson: A Vector Boson, on the other hand has a spin associated with it. The best example of a vector boson is a photon.

Note:
It is important to note that the fermions always obey the Fermi Dirac statistics and this also means that there can only be one particle with the exactly the same energy state and spin. Protons, neutrons and electrons are examples of fermions. Bosons, on the other hand, obey the Einstein Bose statistics. This means that multiple particles can be in the same energy state. Bosons are known as the force carriers.