Instructor:

E.S. Swanson
217 Allen Hall
4-9057       swansone@pitt.edu     http://fafnir.phyast.pitt.edu/py3765/

class meets Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-10:45, 216 Allen Hall.

Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 - 12:00.

Introductory Texts:

• F. Mandl and G. Shaw, Quantum Field Theory
• F. Gross, Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and Field Theory

Reference Texts:

• Donoghue, Golowich, and Holstein, Dynamics of the Standard Model
• Peskin and Schroeder, An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (the course will follow this text in large part)
• Itzykson and Zuber, Quantum Field Theory

Marking Scheme:   final = 0.4 take home exam + 0.6 assignments

some reading for your spare time

• Haag's theorem and inconsistency of the interaction picture
• Subtleties in defining the path integral

Prerequisites:

py3765 (QFT-I/relativistic quantum mechanics)

Assignments:

• asst 1 pdf. Due Feb 4.
• asst 2 pdf. Due Feb 13.
• asst 3 pdf. Due Feb 27.
• asst 4 pdf. Due Mar 14.
• asst 5 pdf. Due Mar 26.
• asst 6 pdf. Due Apr 16.
• asst 7 pdf. Due Apr 23.
• grades due: Wed Apr 30

Syllabus QFT-II

Advanced topics in QFT will be covered. The course will cover Peskin and Schroeder, chapters 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 18, 20, and 22, with substantial supplementary material from Donoghue, Golowich, and Holstein, and various review articles. The rough syllabus is

• Functional Methods
  • functional derivatives, Schroedinger representation, path integrals, operator ordering, curved space, Haag's theorem, Grassmann variables, Faddeev-Popov trick, symmetries, Schwinger-Dyson equations
• Renormalization II
  • BPH again, dim reg, magnetic moment, power counting, LSZ theorem, dimensional regularisation
  • QED at one loop
  • composite operators
  • renormalization and symmetry, ABJ anomaly, trace anomaly, pi₀ to gamma gamma
• Renormalisation and Symmetry
  • symmetry breaking, Goldstone's theorem, linear sigma model at one-loop, the effection action, the renormalisation group improved effective action
• Non-Abelian Field Theory
  • Lie algebras and groups, irreducible representations, quadratic Casimir operators
  • gauge invariance, A is not a four-vector, Yang-Mills theory, Faddeev-Popov prescription and gauge fixing, Feynman rules, ghosts, Coulomb gauge
  • QCD: historical perspective, symmetries of QCD, theta-vacuum and topology, QCD at one loop, the beta function, asymptotic freedom and infrared slavery, scale setting
• Gauge Theory with Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking
  • Higgs mechanism, the Abelian Higgs model, nonAbelian scalar Higgs model, patterns of symmetry breaking, Glashow-Salam-Weinberg model, fermion mass, the CKM matrix, unitary gauge, Higgs decays
• Effective Field Theory
  • rationale, naturalness, electroweak EFT, operator mixing, matching, renormalisation group running, application to B and D decays
• Problems in the Standard Model
  • gauge heirarchy problem, strong CP problem, cosmological constant problem, EW baryogenesis