Physics 230: Elementary Particle Theory

Course Information for Fall 2017

Lectures:

Time: Monday & Wednesday, 10:30 - 11:55
Location: 469 Lauritsen

Office Hours:

Time: to be determined
Location: 452 Lauritsen

We will learn methods in quantum field theory which I hope are useful for theorists in high energy physics, condensed matter physics, quantum information, astrophysics, and cosmology. It is assumed that students have taken an introductory course on quantum field theory (such as Ph 205 at Caltech), which includes Feynman diagrams and renormalization in quantum electrodynamics (QED).

We plan to cover a certain subset of:

Quantization of the Yang-Mills theory
Spontaneously broken global and gauge symmetries
Solitons and instantons
Renormalization, renormalization group flow, and effective field theory
Conformal field theory

Textbook:

The quantum field theory, volume 2: modern applications by Steven Weinberg

References:

Quantum field theory in general
Quantum field theory in a nutshell by Anthony Zee
Aspects of symmetry by Sidney Coleman
Harvard lectures on QFT by Xi Yin
Solitons and instantons
TASI lectures on solitons by David Tong
Les Houches lectures on vortices and monopole by John Preskill
Renormalization, renormalization group flow, and effective field theory
Renormalization and effective lagrangian by Joseph Polchinski
Effective field theory and the Fermi surface by Joseph Polchinski
Lectures on effective field theory by David B. Kaplan
Effective field theory by Howard Georgi
Lectures on renormalization group flow by Zohar Komargodski
ICTP lectures on conformal field theory by Zohar Komargodski