Particle Physics
PHGN 423 Particle Physics Spring 2022
The Facts:
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- Lecture: T 5-6:15pm, TR 5-6:15pm (but we'll move these to 5:15-6:30pm when our colloquium moves back to F2F) in CK150.
- A nice fellow decided to take my lectures and turn them into a text: Volume 1 and Volume 2
- Recommended but not required text: "Introduction to Elementary Particles (2nd Edition)" by David J. Griffiths. I used to teach this course largely following this text, but I found the order of material uninspiring, so I revamped the approach. You will find much useful information in the text, but what I expect you to learn will be covered in class or in the lecture notes I provide. I know many of you are saavy and can get your hands on electronic copies. That will be fine since at no point will I require you to use the book. Note that the second edition of the book is preferred since some problems were modified and a rather significant notational change in Feynman diagrams was made between editions.
- Office Hours: Mine: W 2-4:50pm via Zoom, and Tuesday and Thursday from 3-3:30pm in CTLM 223, the Physics Studio. The TA Ross: T 7-9pm, TR 3:30-4:50pm via Zoom.
- Evaluation: Your grade will be based on lecture participation (10%), homework (40%), an in-class midterm exam (20%) and a takehome final exam (30%).
Lecture participation will be assessed by your response to questions posed during lecture. I will draw names randomly to answer questions and if you are not present or fail to respond as if paying attention, you will lose 1% of the 10% for lecture participation. Any student sitting in on the course (not enrolled) will be expected to take part in lecture participation or asked to refrain from attending.
Homework will be assigned regularly and "due" on Thursdays. Instead of turning in your assignments I will administer short homework quizzes.
The quiz will consist of two questions from which you will choose one to answer. Each question will be very similar to a part of one of the homework problems, but not identical.
You will be allowed to use your homework solutions to help you on the quiz, but not your book. If you are a good then perhaps you will be able to work the quiz problems on the fly, but with the time constraint this will be next-to-impossible for most, so you should try your best to complete the assignments on your own. The reasons for this are two-fold. First it cuts out the motivation for simply copying someone else's homework, and secondly it will make the grading more expedient.
Description:
This course will serve as an introduction/survey of the modern ideas that have arisen through our asking one of the most basic questions in physics, i.e. "What are the fundamental constituents of matter and what are the interactions between them?" Our best answers to these questions are posed in the framework of quantum field theory (QFT). This will not be a full-blown course in QFT as this subject usually merits several semesters of work at the advanced graduate level. Rather we will try to get a working knowledge of many results which come out of QFT. I used to frame this course as an introduction to the Standard Model of particle physics, but the truth is that many of the more profound ideas that we will cover extend beyond this specific example. To be sure, we will develop a firm appreciation and understanding of the content and structure of the Standard Model, but we will also see connections to other branches of physics as well as motivations to go beyond this framework.
Objectives:
We will begin with an outline of the Standard Model if only to layout the many details later to be filled in. The first part of the semester (up to spring break) will focus on the formal structure of the Standard Model including an introduction to the mathematical treatment of symmetries, special relativity, relativistic lagranigans and equations of motion for scalar, spinor and vector fields, the principle of local gauge invariance and the Higgs mechanism for mass generation. The second part of the course will focus more on computational aspects including a review of perturbation theory and developing how it is applied to relativistic field theories. This will require us to utilize the famed Feynman diagrams and will allow us to reproduce several of the classic and well confirmed predictions of the Standard Model. Most importantly it will allow us to explore the idea of renormalization which will serve as a stepping stone to other areas of physics, e.g. condensed matter, as well as "new" fundamental physics beyond the Standard Model.
Lectures:
My hope is to provide you with a pre-lecture summary of the ideas to be covered that you should read in advance. These will be linked below. After each lecture, I will post my notes below as well.
Homework:
Exams: