The past decade has witnessed dramatic developments in the field of theoretical physics. This book is a comprehensive introduction to these recent developments. It contains a review of the Standard Model, covering non-perturbative topics, and a discussion of grand unified theories and magnetic monopoles. It introduces the basics of supersymmetry and its phenomenology, and includes dynamics, dynamical supersymmetry breaking, and electric-magnetic duality. The book then covers general relativity and the big bang theory, and the basic issues in inflationary cosmologies before discussing the spectra of known string theories and the features of their interactions. The book also includes brief introductions to technicolor, large extra dimensions, and the Randall-Sundrum theory of warped spaces. This will be of great interest to graduates and researchers in the fields of particle theory, string theory, astrophysics and cosmology. The book contains several problems, and password protected solutions will be available to lecturers at www.cambridge.org/9780521858410.
This volume is a compilation of the lectures at TASI 2011, held in Boulder, Colorado, June 2011. They cover topics in theoretical particle physics including the Standard Model and beyond, collider physics, dark matter, and cosmology, at a level intended to be accessible to students at the initial stages of their research careers.
This book reviews the present state of knowledge of the anomalous magnetic moment a=(g-2)/2 of the muon. The muon anomalous magnetic moment is one of the most precisely measured quantities in elementary particle physics and provides one of the most stringent tests of relativistic quantum field theory as a fundamental theoretical framework. It allows for an extremely precise check of the standard model of elementary particles and of its limitations.
This highly-regarded text provides a comprehensive introduction to modern particle physics. Extensively rewritten and updated, this 4th edition includes developments in elementary particle physics, as well as its connections with cosmology and astrophysics. As in previous editions, the balance between experiment and theory is continually emphasised. The stress is on the phenomenological approach and basic theoretical concepts rather than rigorous mathematical detail. Short descriptions are given of some of the key experiments in the field, and how they have influenced our thinking. Although most of the material is presented in the context of the Standard Model of quarks and leptons, the shortcomings of this model and new physics beyond its compass (such as supersymmetry, neutrino mass and oscillations, GUTs and superstrings) are also discussed. The text includes many problems and a detailed and annotated further reading list.
In physics, the idea of extra spatial dimensions originates from Nordstöm’s 5-dimensional vector theory in 1914, followed by Kaluza-Klein theory in 1921, in an effort to unify general relativity and electromagnetism in a 5 dimensional space-time (4 dimensions for space and 1 for time). Kaluza–Klein theory didn’t generate enough interest with physicist for the next five decades, due to its problems with inconsistencies. With the advent of supergravity theory (the theory that unifies general relativity and supersymmetry theories) in late 1970’s and eventually, string theories (1980s) and M-theory (1990s), the dimensions of space-time increased to 11 (10-space and 1-time dimension). There are two main features in this book that differentiates it from other books written about extra dimensions: The first feature is the coverage of extra dimensions in time (Two Time physics), which has not been covered in earlier books about extra dimensions. All other books mainly cover extra spatial dimensions. The second feature deals with level of presentation. The material is presented in a non-technical language followed by additional sections (in the form of appendices or footnotes) that explain the basic equations and formulas in the theories. This feature is very attractive to readers who want to find out more about the theories involved beyond the basic description for a layperson. The text is designed for scientifically literate non-specialists who want to know the latest discoveries in theoretical physics in a non-technical language. Readers with basic undergraduate background in modern physics and quantum mechanics can easily understand the technical sections. Part I starts with an overview of the Standard Model of particles and forces, notions of Einstein’s special and general relativity, and the overall view of the universe from the Big Bang to the present epoch, and covers Two-Time physics. 2T-physics has worked correctly at all scales of physics, both macroscopic and microscopic, for which there is experimental data so far. In addition to revealing hidden information even in familiar "everyday" physics, it also makes testable predictions in lesser known physics regimes that could be analyzed at the energy scales of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN or in cosmological observations." Part II of the book is focused on extra dimensions of space. It covers the following topics: The Popular View of Extra Dimensions, Einstein and the Fourth Dimension, Traditional Extra Dimensions, Einstein's Gravity, The Theory Formerly Known as String, Warped Extra Dimensions, and How Do We Look For Extra Dimensions?
The purpose of this book is to thoroughly prepare the reader for research in string theory at an intermediate level. As such it is not a compendium of results but intended as textbook in the sense that most of the material is organized in a pedagogical and self-contained fashion. Beyond the basics, a number of more advanced topics are introduced, such as conformal field theory, superstrings and string dualities - the text does not cover applications to black hole physics and cosmology, nor strings theory at finite temperatures. End-of-chapter references have been added to guide the reader wishing to pursue further studies or to start research in well-defined topics covered by this book.
With the discovery of the Higgs boson, the LHC experiments have closed the most important gap in our understanding of fundamental interactions, confirming that such interactions between elementary particles can be described by quantum field theory, more specifically by a renormalizable gauge theory. This theory is a priori valid for arbitrarily high energy scales and does not require an ultraviolet completion. Yet, when trying to apply the concrete knowledge of quantum field theory to actual LHC physics - in particular to the Higgs sector and certain regimes of QCD - one inevitably encounters an intricate maze of phenomenological know-how, common lore and other, often historically developed intuitions about what works and what doesn’t. These lectures cover three aspects to help understand LHC results in the Higgs sector and in searches for physics beyond the Standard Model: they discuss the many facets of Higgs physics, which is at the core of this significantly expanded second edition; then QCD, to the degree relevant for LHC measurements; as well as further standard phenomenological background knowledge. They are intended to serve as a brief but sufficiently detailed primer on LHC physics to enable graduate students and all newcomers to the field to find their way through the more advanced literature, and to help those starting to work in this very timely and exciting field of research. Advanced readers will benefit from this course-based text for their own lectures and seminars. .
This book contains write-ups of lectures from a summer school for advanced graduate students in elementary particle physics. In the first lecture, Scott Willenbrock gives an overview of the standard model of particle physics. This is followed by reviews of specific areas of standard model physics: precision electroweak analysis by James Wells, quantum chromodynamics and jets by George Sterman, and heavy quark effective field by Matthias Neubert. Developments in neutrino physics are discussed by Andr de Gouvea and the theory behind the Higgs boson is addressed by Laura Reina. Collider phenomenology from both experimental and theoretical perspectives are highlighted by Heidi Schellman and Tao Han. A brief survey of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking is provided by R Sekhar Chivukula and Elizabeth H Simmons. Martin Schmaltz covers the recent proposals for ?little? Higgs theories. Markus Luty describes what is needed to make supersymmetric theories realistic by breaking supersymmetry. There is an entire series of lectures by Raman Sundrum, Graham Kribs, and Csaba Cs ki on extra dimensions. Finally, Keith Olive completes the book with a review of astrophysics.
