This textbook addresses graduate students starting to specialize in theoretical physics. It provides didactic introductions to the main topics in the theory of fields, while taking into account the contemporary view of the subject. The student will find concise explanations of basic notions essential for applications of the theory of fields as well as for frontier research in theoretical physics. One third of the book is devoted to classical fields. Each chapter contains exercises of varying degree of difficulty with hints or solutions, plus summaries and worked examples as useful. It aims to deliver a unique combination of classical and quantum field theory in one compact course.
A fully updated edition of the classic text by acclaimed physicist A. Zee Since it was first published, Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell has quickly established itself as the most accessible and comprehensive introduction to this profound and deeply fascinating area of theoretical physics. Now in this fully revised and expanded edition, A. Zee covers the latest advances while providing a solid conceptual foundation for students to build on, making this the most up-to-date and modern textbook on quantum field theory available. This expanded edition features several additional chapters, as well as an entirely new section describing recent developments in quantum field theory such as gravitational waves, the helicity spinor formalism, on-shell gluon scattering, recursion relations for amplitudes with complex momenta, and the hidden connection between Yang-Mills theory and Einstein gravity. Zee also provides added exercises, explanations, and examples, as well as detailed appendices, solutions to selected exercises, and suggestions for further reading. The most accessible and comprehensive introductory textbook available Features a fully revised, updated, and expanded text Covers the latest exciting advances in the field Includes new exercises Offers a one-of-a-kind resource for students and researchers Leading universities that have adopted this book include: Arizona State University Boston University Brandeis University Brown University California Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon College of William & Mary Cornell Harvard University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Northwestern University Ohio State University Princeton University Purdue University - Main Campus Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rutgers University - New Brunswick Stanford University University of California - Berkeley University of Central Florida University of Chicago University of Michigan University of Montreal University of Notre Dame Vanderbilt University Virginia Tech University
This book provides an introduction to Quantum Field Theory (QFT) at an elementary level—with only special relativity, electromagnetism and quantum mechanics as prerequisites. For this fresh approach to teaching QFT, based on numerous lectures and courses given by the authors, a representative sample of topics has been selected containing some of the more innovative, challenging or subtle concepts. They are presented with a minimum of technical details, the discussion of the main ideas being more important than the presentation of the typically very technical mathematical details necessary to obtain the final results. Special attention is given to the realization of symmetries in particle physics: global and local symmetries, explicit, spontaneously broken, and anomalous continuous symmetries, as well as discrete symmetries. Beyond providing an overview of the standard model of the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions and the current understanding of the origin of mass, the text enumerates the general features of renormalization theory as well as providing a cursory description of effective field theories and the problem of naturalness in physics. Among the more advanced topics the reader will find are an outline of the first principles derivation of the CPT theorem and the spin-statistics connection. As indicated by the title, the main aim of this text is to motivate the reader to study QFT by providing a self-contained and approachable introduction to the most exciting and challenging aspects of this successful theoretical framework.
This book presents in a short volume the basics of quantum field theory and many body physics. The first part introduces the perturbative techniques without sophisticated apparatus and applies them to numerous problems including quantum electrodynamics (renormalization), Fermi and Bose gases, the Brueckner theory of nuclear system, liquid Helium and classical systems with noise. The material is clear, illustrative and the important points are stressed to help the reader get the understanding of what is crucial without overwhelming him with unnecessary detours or comments. The material in the second part ranges from variational principles to path integrals, discusses gauge theory, the renormalization group and classical solutions together with their applications.
'Sidney Coleman was the master teacher of quantum field theory. All of us who knew him became his students and disciples. Sidneyâ (TM)s legendary course remains fresh and bracing, because he chose his topics with a sure feel for the essential, and treated them with elegant economy.'Frank WilczekNobel Laureate in Physics 2004Sidney Coleman was a physicist's physicist. He is largely unknown outside of the theoretical physics community, and known only by reputation to the younger generation. He was an unusually effective teacher, famed for his wit, his insight and his encyclopedic knowledge of the field to which he made many important contributions. There are many first-rate quantum field theory books (the venerable Bjorken and Drell, the more modern Itzykson and Zuber, the now-standard Peskin and Schroeder, and the recent Zee), but the immediacy of Prof. Coleman's approach and his ability to present an argument simply without sacrificing rigor makes his book easy to read and ideal for the student. Part of the motivation in producing this book is to pass on the work of this outstanding physicist to later generations, a record of his teaching that he was too busy to leave himself.
Four concise, brilliant lectures on mathematical methods in quantum mechanics from Nobel Prize–winning quantum pioneer build on idea of visualizing quantum theory through the use of classical mechanics.
2012 Reprint of 1955 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Dirac is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest physicists. He was one of the founders of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. His early contributions include the modern operator calculus for quantum mechanics, which he called transformation theory, and an early version of the path integral. His relativistic wave equation for the electron was the first successful attack on the problem of relativistic quantum mechanics. Dirac founded quantum field theory with his reinterpretation of the Dirac equation as a many-body equation, which predicted the existence of antimatter and matter-antimatter annihilation. He was the first to formulate quantum electrodynamics, although he could not calculate arbitrary quantities because the short distance limit requires renormalization. Dirac discovered the magnetic monopole solutions, the first topological configuration in physics, and used them to give the modern explanation of charge quantization. He developed constrained quantization in the 1960s, identifying the general quantum rules for arbitrary classical systems. These lectures were given delivered and published during his tenure at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study in the 1930's.
"Ideally suited to a one-year graduate course, this textbook is also a useful reference for researchers. Readers are introduced to the subject through a review of the history of quantum mechanics and an account of classic solutions of the Schr.
Quantum field theory provides the theoretical backbone to most modern physics. This book is designed to bring quantum field theory to a wider audience of physicists. It is packed with worked examples, witty diagrams, and applications intended to introduce a new audience to this revolutionary theory.
