Advanced Quantum Field Theory, 2012—2013
Fridays 10:30 in G1B31
Topics
- Basic group theory, non-abelian gauge theory
- Standard model
- Anomalies, chiral gauge theories
, Schwinger model - Solitons and instantons
- Group theory applications to GUTs
and Little Higgs - Supersymmetry
- Large N
- Seiberg duality
Conformal field theoryAdS/CFT
Schedule
7 September 2012: Classical non-abelian gauge theories- Reading: Peskin & Schroeder chapter 15; Srednicki chapters 69—70
- Facilitator: Anqi
- Resources:
- David's comments on the discussion
- Solutions to some problems from Peskin chapter 15: David's and Wati's
14 September 2012: Quantizing non-abelian gauge theories: Faddeev—Popov procedure
- Reading: Peskin & Schroeder sections 16.1—16.4 (optionally skim 16.5—16.6); Srednicki chapters 71 and 74 (optionally skim 72—73); Zee section III.4
- Facilitator: Greg
- Resources:
- Solutions to some problems including Fadeev—Popov practice: David's and Iain's
21 September 2012: Quantizing non-abelian gauge theories: BRST symmetry and the beta function
- Reading: Peskin & Schroeder sections 16.3—16.6; Srednicki chapters 72—74; Zee section III.4
- Facilitator: Oscar
- Resources:
- David's comments on the discussion
- Solutions to some beta function problems: David's and Iain's (part 1, part 2)
28 September 2012: Gauged spontaneous symmetry breaking, Higgs mechanism
- Reading: Srednicki chapters 84—86; optionally Peskin & Schroeder section 20.1
- Facilitator: Anqi
- Resources:
5 October 2012: Standard model — electroweak symmetry breaking, flavor/CKM, neutrino masses
- Reading: Srednicki chapters 87—89 and 91; optionally Peskin & Schroeder sections 20.2—20.3
- Facilitator: Oscar
- Resources:
- David's comments on the discussion
- Solutions to some problems on the standard model from Peskin & Schroeder chapter 20 and "final project": David's and Iain's (text, figures)
12 October 2012: Anomalies
- Reading: Srednicki chapters 75—77, Peskin & Schroeder sections 19.2 & 19.4
- Facilitator: Greg
- Resources:
- David's comments on the discussion
- Solutions to some problems on anomalies: David's and Iain's
24 October 2012: Solitons
- Reading: Chris Rosen's review, Srednicki chapter 92, eventually Coleman chapter 6
- Facilitator: Oscar
2 November 2012: Instantons
- Reading: Srednicki chapter 93, Coleman sections 7.1—7.3, eventually the rest of Coleman chapter 7
- Facilitator: Greg
- Resources:
- TASI lectures by David Tong on solitons: writeup from 2005 (also here), videos from 2007
- Solutions to a problem on instantons: David's and Iain's
9 November 2012: Chiral symmetry breaking and theta vacua
- Reading: Srednicki chapters 83 and 94
- Facilitator: Anqi
30 November 2012: Group theory — roots, weights and Dynkin diagrams
- Reading: Slansky section 4 (optionally sections 5—6); Georgi chapters 6—8
- Facilitator: Oscar
- Resources:
7 December 2012: Group theory — more SU(3), classification
- Reading: Georgi chapters 9 and 20, skim 19
- Facilitator: Greg
- Resources:
14 December 2012: Grand unification (with prelude on Young tableaux)
- Reading: Srednicki chapter 97, optionally Georgi sections 18.6—18.8
- Facilitator: Anqi
- Resources:
18 January 2013: Introducing supersymmetry
- Reading: Srednicki chapter 95
- Facilitator: Oscar
- Resources:
- David's comments on the discussion
- The reviews David used in a susy reading course a few years back (from least to most technical):
- Ian J R Aitchison, "Supersymmetry and the MSSM: An Elementary Introduction", hep-ph/0505105, 12 May 2005 (this one doesn't seem to have been useful enough to carry from Boston to Boulder)
- Michael E. Peskin, "Supersymmetry in Elementary Particle Physics", arXiv:0801.1928, 13 January 2008
- Stephen P. Martin, "A Supersymmetry Primer", hep-ph/9709356 — used v4 (1 June 2006) but the latest is v6 (6 September 2011)
- Philip Argyres, "Introduction to Supersymmetry" (the version from 1996 with 2-component spinor notation; there is also a version from 2001 that uses 4-component notation, following Weinberg3)
- Flip Tanedo also wrote a guide to introductory supersymmetry literature a few years back
25 January 2013: Supersymmetry and the MSSM
- Reading: Srednicki chapters 95—96
- Facilitator: Oscar
- Resources:
- David's comments on the discussion
1 February 2013: Classical non-abelian gauge theories
- Reading: Peskin & Schroeder chapter 15; Srednicki chapters 69—70
- Facilitator: Greg
- Resources:
- Solutions to some problems from Peskin chapter 15: David's and Wati's
8 February 2013: Non-abelian group theory continued
- Reading: Srednicki chapter 70
- Facilitator: Anqi
15 February 2013: Non-abelian gauge theories continued
- Reading: Srednicki chapter 71 and less carefully chapters 72—73
- Facilitator: Anqi
- Resources:
- Solutions to some beta function problems: David's and Iain's (part 1, part 2)
22 February 2013: Large N introduction
- Reading: Coleman chapter 8: section 1, the first five paragraphs of section 2, and sections 3.1—3.2
- Facilitator: Greg
1 March 2013: Large N continued
- Reading: Coleman chapter 8, sections 3.2—3.4
- Facilitator: Greg
8 March 2013: Duality in the two-dimensional Ising model
- Reading: Savit section II.A
- Facilitator: Oscar
- Resources:
15 March 2013: Dualities in two dimensions
- Reading: Coleman sections 6.5.1—6.5.2 and Savit section IV.B
- Facilitator: Oscar
5 April 2013: Monopoles and anomalies for supersymmetric dualities
12 April 2013: Instantons and conformality for supersymmetric dualities
- Reading: Terning, sections 7.5—7.8
- Facilitator: Anqi
19 April 2013: Holomorphy in Supersymmetric Yang—Mills
- Reading: Terning, chapter 8
- Facilitator: Greg
26 April 2013: Supersymmetric QCD with F < N
- Reading: Terning, chapter 9
- Facilitator: Oscar
3 May 2013: Seiberg duality for F > N + 1
- Reading: Terning sections 10.1—10.6, and skim section 1 of Matt Strassler, The Duality Cascade (TASI 2003)
- Facilitator: Greg
Etc.
- Errata and pre-publication draft of Srednicki's text
- Preskill lecture notes
- Pre-print of Georgi's 1993 review of effective field theory, and MIT OpenCourseWare for Iain Stewart's 2006 special topics course. Srednicki also recommends Georgi's book on weak interactions for this topic, a pre-print of which is also available.
Last modified 8 May 2013
