Course Outline

(Recommended reading included in brackets)

Lecture 1.  Aims of particle physics.  Fundamental fermions - quarks, leptons, hadrons as quark bound states.  Fundamental bosons.  Fundamental interactions as mediated by fundamental bosons, properties of the four interactions.
(§14.1, 14.2 of The New Physics)

Lecture 2.  Review of special relativity:  Lorentz transformations, four-vectors, relativistic energy and momentum, four-momentum, relativistic energy-momentum relations, spacetime diagrams, relativistic kinematics.
(E&R Appendix A)

Lecture 3.  Antiparticles:  negative energy solutions in relativistic quantum mechanics, Feynman's interpretation in terms of antiparticles, spacetime diagrams for antiparticle processes.
(§3.5 of The Forces of Nature:  Martin and Shaw §1.2:  Hey and Walters Ch.9)

Lecture 4.  Quantum electrodynamics:  classical picture of electromagnetism, virtual particles, photon emission by a free electron as a virtual process.
(Hey and Walters Ch.9;  §4.2 of The Forces of Nature)

Lecture 5.  Virtual photon cloud as quantum analogue of electromagnetic field, electromagnetic interaction in terms of virtual photon exchange.
(Martin and Shaw §1.3.1, 1.3.2)

Lecture 6.  Spin in relativistic quantum mechanics: review of orbital angular momentum , defining spin of a massive point particle in its rest frame, spin of a massless particle in terms of the helicity operator, helicity eigenstates for massive and massless particles, quantization of helicity in massive and massless case.

Lecture 7.  Weak interactions:  weak interaction processes in nuclear physics, weak interaction processes as due to virtual W-boson exchange, weak interaction vertices for u, d, e- and _e, putting together vertices to make weak interaction processes.
(Martin and Shaw §8.2)

Lecture 8.  Pions and weak interaction processes involving pions, rule of thumb involving quark and lepton conservation.  Range and strength of weak interactions:  range of interactions as determined by mass of mediating particle, estimate for range, Yukawa potential, fine structure constant and relation to virtual photon exchange.
(Martin and Shaw §1.4.1, 1.4.2)

Lecture 9.  Potential energy due to virtual W exchange, weak coupling constant, intrinsic strength of weak and electromagnetic interactions as comparable.What distinguishes neutrinos and antineutrinos: allowed helicities for massive and massless spin-half particles, existence of only negative helicity neutrinos and only positive helicity antineutrinos.

Lecture 10.  Inability to treat neutrino and antineutrino as different helicity states of the one particle due to distinction via weak interaction, masslessness of neutrinos from consistency with special relativity, experimental determination of neutrino helicity from nuclear physics.
(Martin and Shaw §9.1)

Lecture 11. Parity violation in weak interactions:  parity transformations, behaviour of spin under parity transformations, interchange of negative and positive helicity states under parity transformations, parity violation in weak interactions, preferential participation of negative helicity fermions and positive helicity antifermions in weak interactions, experimental evidence of parity violation in nuclear beta decay.
(The forces of Nature §5.3,  E&R §16.4)

Lecture 12.  Incorporating the next generation of fermions: c, s, _-, __.  Cabbibo mixing and the Cabbibo angle, K-mesons, experimental determination of Cabbibo angle. Neutral currents and the Zo: neutral current processes, comparison and contrast with electromagnetic interactions, relative importance of electromagnetic and neutral current processes at high and low energies.
(Martin and Shaw §8.1, 8.2.3, 8.3: Perkins §7.11, 7.12)

Lecture 13. Neutrino oscillations: the possibility of inequivalence of weak and mass eigenstates if neutrinos have a mass, neutrino oscillation, experimental tests for neutrino oscillaiton.
(Martin and Shaw §10.2.1, Perkins §7.15)

Recommended Reading:

The lectures do not follow any particular text closely.  Reference is made to the following books which are available on closed reserve in the library:

1. Particle Physics,  B.R. Martin and G. Shaw
2. Introduction to Particle Physics,  D.H. Perkins
3. The Ideas of Particle Physics,  G.D. Coughlan and J.E. Dodd
4. Quantum Physics,  R. Eisberg and R. Resnick
5. The New Physics,  edited by P.C.W. Davies

Lecturer