Physics 154. Spring 2016

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 :TTh 11:00-12:20pm, MYR-A 5623. Midterm date: Thursday April 28, in lecture. Final: June 7, 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%.

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
3/29 Introduction and overview (chapters 1 and 2)   HW 1 (Due 4/5)        
3/31 Relativity review, getting to covariant derivatives          
4/5 Gauge invariance. Field lagrangians. Dirac stuff   HW 2 (Due 4/12)        
4/7 Spin 0 field, KG equation, quantization          
4/12 Dirac equation and Lagrangian.   HW 3 (Due 4/21)        
4/14 Feynman rules, continued.          
4/19 Standard Model big picture. Cross sections.          
4/21 Cross section cont., helicity, etc.   HW 4 (due 4/28)        
4/26 Helicity. Isospin. SU(3) flavor          
5/3 Isospin and SU(3) flavor continued   HW 5 (due 5/12)        
5/5 Isospin and spin continued          
5/10 Isospin, spin, SU(3) flavor          
5/12 SU(3) flavor continued          
5/17 SU(3) flavor and the mesons and baryons.          
5/19 Evidence for SU(3) color.          
5/24 SU(3) color, QCD Feynman rules   HW 6, due 5/26        
5/26 Color and asymptotic freedom. Start weak force.          
5/31 Weak force.   HW 7 due 6/2