Physics 154. Spring 2017

Professor: Ken Intriligator, Mayer Hall 5234. Office hours: after class, and by appointment.

Text: Modern Particle Physics, by Mark Thomson (Cambridge U. Press, 2013).

Course Times :MW 12:30-1:50pm, MYR-A 5623. Midterm date: Monday May 8, in lecture.
Final: Wednesday June 14, 11:30-2:30.

Homework: Must be turned in on time. It is essential to do your exercises. Do not use any online or other sources to copy HW solutions: it's cheating both yourself, and it is also cheating in the sense that would be reported to the Academic Integrity office. Working together in groups is OK, as long as everyone is working.

Grading: Homework: 20%, Midterm: 25%, Final 50%, Class participation: 5%.

Website for my physics 154 class from last year

Standard Model Wikipedia page, Standard Model logo. Standard Model, the toys and merchandising. LHC Rap . Particle Data Group website . As you can tell, I very much like my CERN mug (which was a gift from a former student), despite the fact that it has an extraneous "+h.c." on the 2nd line.

lecture# topic Homework
4/3 Introduction and overview (chapters 1 and 2)   HW 1 (Due 4/11)        
4/5 Introduction cont, relativity etc review (chapters 1 and 2)          
4/10 Gauge invariance, field lagrangians          
4/12 Spin 0 field, quantization   HW 2 (due 4/19)        
4/17 Spin 0 and spin 1 fields and quantization          
4/19 Dirac equation and quantization   HW 3 (due 4/26)        
4/24 Dirac quantization. Start Feynman diagrams          
4/26 Feynman rules   HW 4 (due 5/3)        
5/1 Cross sections etc.          
5/3 Cross sections, cont.,          
5/10 Various things, chirality, isospin          
5/15 Group theory. Isospin, applications.   HW 5, due 5/17        
5/17 More SU(2) isospin. Applications.   HW 6, due 5/24        
5/22 SU(N) and SU(3) flavor.          
5/24 More SU(3) flavor. Applications.          
5/31 QCD: color, gauged SU(3)   HW 7 (due June 9)        
6/5 QCD cont, asymptotic freedom          
6/7 Weak force, Standard Model cont