PHY 621
Advanced Quantum
Field Theory
Spring 2008 (MWF 10:40-11:35, P119)
office consultation available on request
Prerequisites --- some field theory
- basic group theory: SU(N), Lorentz
- action principles: Standard Model
- Feynman rules: @ least QED
Material
- Stuff you may have missed if you didn’t take field theory (PHY 610 & 611) from me.
- More advanced stuff I didn’t have enough time to cover in my field theory course.
- Lots more homework: Much (if not most) of the course will involve doing difficult homework problems & discussing them in gory detail in class. (This isn’t a seminar.) Similarly, it will be to your advantage to study the material of each lecture before it’s given, to prepare questions.
Possible topics
- Advanced, quick review of things you “should” have had (a chance to catch up)
- group theory
- spin
- path integrals
- BRST
- dimensional regularization
- More detail on topics you may have had (if you were so lucky)
- twistors
- supersymmetry (in superspace)
- instantons
- many gauges
- spinor helicity/spacecone
- supergraphs
- 2-loop calculations
- renormalons
- Advanced topics that usually fall in the cracks (is it advanced enough yet?)
- relativistic first-quantization
- supergravity (in superspace)
- field theory in higher dimensions
- gauge theories for arbitrary spin
Topics covered, & speed @ which they’re covered, will be adapted to the class.
Textbook: FIELDS
- the textbook for the course (an extended version of my lecture notes), available for free download (also at arXiv.org)
- the latest additions to the text, including new homework problems
As this book is almost 900 pages, I suggest you try to use it on your computer, or save some trees and print just the bits you need at the time. It covers not only material for this course, but also what I use for field theory, relativity, & some of string theory. I recommend the PDF version, which links directly to downloadable reference papers at arXiv.org.
Grading
Grading will be based entirely on homework. Problems will be taken from those in Fields (including the additions on my web page). You may discuss problems with classmates, but the write-up must be your own. Homework is due one week after assignment, at the beginning of class. (Put it on my desk when you enter.) No late homework is accepted; it may be handed in early, but only to me in person.
Auditors are encouraged to try the homework.
University-required statements
These statements are required in all University syllabi. (They are the same in all course syllabi, so just read it once. Apparently, the incorrect use of "impact" as a verb is also required.)