SYLLABUS
PHYSICS 735, PARTICLE PHYSICS
The course is divided into two units, UNIT 1 and UNIT 2, with different themes and emphases, each followed by an exam. The material is of course cumulative, but the exams will emphasize the respective sections of the course.
Unit 1 is concerned with the background of modern particle physics: quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons, relativistic fields and particles, the quark model for hadrons, space-time and internal symmetries, the Dirac equation, perturbation theory, and the calculation of scattering cross sections and particle decay rates. It is intended to build up familiarity with the properties of the observed particles as interpreted through the quark-lepton-gauge boson picture, and with simple calculational techniques used in particle physics. The material developed in lecture and in the reading will be the background for the problem assignments.
Unit 2 is concerned with the application and extension of the material in Unit 1. The main topics are Feynman perturbation theory, electromagnetic scattering and the parton picture of hadrons, the extension of the parton picture to quantum chromodynamics (QCD), weak interactions as observed in particle scattering and decays, and the formulation of the standard Weinberg-Salam model of the electroweak interactions.
A third very important aspect of the course is concerned with a term paper. This is a library reseach paper on a current topic, experimental or theoretical, connected with material covered in the course. This is intended to get you to look at one topic in more depth than it is covered in the course, get into the relevant literature, and write a brief review in the style appropriate for Physical Review D, the primary particle physics journal.
The syllabus given below may change slightly as the semester proceeds, but indicates the material which will be covered and gives the general outline of the course and important dates to keep in mind.
| Week | Lec. | Date | Subjects |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Jan. 21 | Introduction: quarks and leptons, gluons, W and Z bosons; relativistic fields and particles, creation and annihilation operators, particle statistics |
| 2 | 23 | Hadronic multiplets: isospin I, hypercharge Y, and charge Q; quark and antiquark multiplets, naive quark model for mesons and baryons | |
| 2 | 3 | Jan. 28 | Space-time symmetries J, P, C, T; isospin and SU(2), Clebsch-Gordan series, particle decays and cross sections; selection rules |
| Hw. 1 | 4 | 30 | Isospin relations for cross sections; quark triplets, flavor SU(3), Gell-Mann lambda matrices |
| 3 | 5 | Feb. 4 | U and V spins, SU(3) stepping operations, quark-antiquark bound states and meson multiplets; 3× 3bar= 1 + 8; space-time properties, J, L, S, P, C |
| Hw. 2 | 6 | 6 | quark diagrams, scattering and decays; products in SU(3), Young tableaux; baryons, Fermi-Dirac statistics and color |
| 4 | 7 | Feb. 11 | "SU(6)" baryon wave functions; electromagnetic interactions, magnetic moments, transition matrix elements, sigma0 decay, photon polarizations |
| Hw. 3 | 8 | 13 | color charge, gluons, QCD; quark-gluon interactions; color factors by counting |
| 5 | 9 | Feb. 18 | color hyperfine interaction, mass relations for hadrons; "old fashioned" perturbation theory, diagrammatic approach |
| Hw. 4 | 10 | 20 | electromagnetic interactions of scalar particles, scattering; relation of "old fashioned" and Feynman rules for perturbation theory; exchange of massive Klein-Gordon particles |
| 6 | 11 | Feb. 25 | Feynman diagrams, crossing symmetry; invariant phase space, Feynman amplitudes, scattering cross sections, particle decays |
| Hw. 5 | 12 | 27 | Dirac equation, gamma matrices, spinors, orthogonality and completeness relations, projection operators |
| PROPOSAL FOR TERM PAPER DUE MARCH 4 | |||
| 7 | 13 | March 4 | fermion fields, charge conjugation and antiparticles; bilinear covariants and interactions; helicity and chirality |
| Hw. 6 | 14 | 6 | electromagnetic interactions of fermions, electron-muon scattering, Dirac algebra and trace relations; other interactions |
| 8 | 15 | March 11 | e-,e- and e-,e+ scattering, identical particles, restricted phase space |
| Hw. 7 | 16 | 13 | photon and fermion propagators, external photons, Compton scattering and pair annihilation |
| END OF UNIT 1 | |||
| Week | Lec. | Date | Subjects |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 17 | March 18 | EXAM IN CLASS ON UNIT 1, Chaps. 1-6 in Halzen and Martin and the lectures |
| 18 | 20 | exam review; complete Feynman rules; loop processes, divergences, renormalization | |
| SPRING RECESS, MARCH 22-31 | |||
| 10 | 19 | April 1 | elastic electron-proton scattering; form factors and compositeness in the quark model; inelastic ep scattering, Bjorken structure functions W1 and W2 |
| Hw. 8 | 20 | 3 | virtual photons, gamma* p -> X, transverse and longitudinal cross sections, Bjorken scaling in deep inelastic scattering |
| 11 | 21 | April 8 | parton model for deep inelastic scattering, parton distributions, quarks and gluons in hadrons, sum rules |
| PRELIMINARY ABSTRACT, REFERENCES FOR TERM PAPER DUE APRIL 10 | |||
| Hw. 9 | 22 | 10 | QCD processes in hadrons: alpha(s), quark-level cross sections and color factors in deep inelastic scattering, Altarelli-Parisi picture |
| 12 | 23 | April 15 | Altarelli-Parisi splitting functions; evolution of parton distributions with energy; e+e- annihilation to hadrons, R |
| Hw. 10 | 24 | 17 | QCD jets, the Drell-Yan process, inclusive jet cross sections |
| 13 | 25 | April 22 | weak decays, Fermi theory; W bosons, the weak charged current, SU(2)_L, conservation of the weak vector current |
| Hw. 11 | 26 | 24 | oxygen 14 and muon decays, the Fermi coupling G_F, G_F in terms of the gauge coupling g |
| 14 | 27 | April 29 | pion beta decay; neutrino and antineutrino scattering on quarks and leptons, helicity arguments and calculations |
| TERM PAPER DUE MAY 1 | |||
| Hw. 12 | 28 | May 1 | strange quark decays, Cabibbo mixing of quarks; kaon decay to muon pairs, the GIM mechanism, Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa mixing, quark charged currents |
| 15 | 29 | May 6 | W production and decay; neutral currents and the Z boson; the standard model of electroweak interactions |
| Hw. 13 | 30 | 8 | properties of the Z boson; running couplings and unified models of the strong and electroweak interactions |
| END OF UNIT 2 | |||
| Final | Dec. 17 | FINAL EXAM SUNDAY, MAY 11, 7:45 am, main emphasis on Unit 2, Chaps. 7-13 in Halzen and Martin and the lectures |
Send comments or questions to: ldurand@theory2.physics.wisc.edu
© Loyal Durand, 1997