Physics 56500 - Introduction to Elementary Particle Physics II

Course description:

Instructor: Jones
Email: mjones@physics.purdue.edu
Title: Introduction to Elementary Particle Physics II
Offering: Sem. 1, Class 3, cr. 3.
Room : Armstrong 1028
Time : M,W,F 11:30-12:20
Prerequisites: Phys 360, Phys 460, Phys 550, Phys 564
Text:No assigned text... references to various sources will be provided.
Grading:75% assignments, 25% presentation
Description: The course will cover the development and structure of the Standard Model via the Standard Model Lagrangian. This is not intended to be a course in formal Quantum Field Theory, but the main results of QFT will be introduced to provide a rigorous framework in which to discuss the construction and implications of the Standard Model.

A rough outline of the course is as follows:

  • Particle content in the standard model.
  • Pre-gauge theory successes and problems.
  • Motivation for quantum field theory description.
  • Lagrangians for free fields.
  • Local U(1) gauge symmetry.
  • Feynman diagrams for QED processes.
  • Introduction to tree-level QCD
  • Weak interactions/intermediate vector bosons.
  • Local SU(2) and SU(3) guage symmetry.
  • Spontaneous symmetry breaking.
  • Standard Model Lagrangian and Feynman rules.
  • Electroweak observables in e+e- collisions.
  • Electroweak observables in p p-bar collisions.
  • Beyond the standard model, eg SUSY.
Assignments: Assignment #1
Assignment #2
Assignment #3
Assignment #4
Assignment #5
Assignment #6
Resources: This link provides a list of many wonderful properties of Pauli and Dirac matrices.
This link describes how to use the PCN computers to solve problems numerically.
This link provides an introduction to using ROOT.
Here are examples describing how to use Tracer to evaluate traces of products of gamma matrices.
Project: There will be a final in-class presentation on a relevant topic of current interest.
Lecture notes: Can be found here.

Links: