Particles and Symmetries

Particle Physics in the News

• Why particle physics matters
• Dark Energy Survey
• AMS: antimatter in space
• Chasing the Higgs
• Search for the Higgs boson at the LHC reveals new particle
• Daya Bay: Neutrino oscillations and ϑ13
• Superluminal neutrinos? (not!)
• Natural particle collider in space

Overview

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental constituents of matter and the symmetries which characterize their interactions. Topics include fundamental symmetries of nature (such as Lorentz invariance, CPT, and baryon and lepton number conservation), the "building blocks" of the current Standard Model of nuclear and particle physics: quarks, gluons and leptons, the importance of symmetries in characterizing the interactions of particles, and key experimental evidence on which the Standard Model is based.

Course objectives

Like most physics courses, overall objectives of this course are two-fold: acquire knowledge about physical aspects of the universe we live in, and learn to quantitatively analyze physical problems. More specifically, students will acquire practical facility with special relativity and its application to relativistic particle dynamics. They will learn how to recognize various classes of elementary particles and predict the type of interactions responsible for their decays and scatterings. They will practice performing order-of-magnitude estimates relevant for interpreting and/or judging the feasibility of a variety of modern physics experiments.

The course covers material from several different, but related, subject areas. The primary reference is the course notes, accessible below. Students will be expected to master the material in these notes. Carefully studying these notes, including the worked examples at the end of chapters, is essential for success in this class. There are no other required textbooks, only recommended supplemental texts. While some homework problems will be typical textbook style problems, focusing on a single concept, many homework problems will focus on analyzing interesting, but unfamiliar, physical systems using the principles and techniques discussed in this course (and its prerequisites).

• Complete (with table of contents and index)
• Preface
• Chapter 0: Introduction
• Chapter 1: Special relativity
• Chapter 2: Minkowski spacetime
• Chapter 3: Relativistic dynamics
• Chapter 4: Known particles
• Chapter 5: Quarks and hadrons
• Chapter 6: Symmetries
• Chapter 7: Weak interactions

There will be weekly homework assignments, one midterm, and a final exam. There will also be regular 'clicker quizzes' during lecture. Grades will be based approximately 30% on homework, 10% on quizzes, 20% on the midterm, and 40% on the final. Taking the final is required to obtain a non-zero grade.

Homework must be turned in (either in class, or in Prof. Yaffe's mailbox) by the end of class on the due date, typically a Wednesday. Late homework will be accepted with a 50% discount in points if turned in by the end of class on the class-day following the original due date.

Your scores on homework assignments and exams may be seen on the Catalyst gradebook. Post-midterm, the column labeled Projected Score is calculated assuming that the average (percentage) scores on the remaining homework assignments and exams are identical to those on previous assignments and exams, respectively. The projected grade is a relatively flat mapping of scores onto the range 0.0 to 4.0, such that passing (a grade of 2.0) comes from a score of approximately 40%. This is just an estimate of the final grade. The precise mapping used will be adjusted as the quarter progresses and more information becomes available.

The course notes are the primary reference for this class, but these books are useful supplemental resources:


Introduction to Relativity by John B. Kogut
Introduction to Nuclear and Particle Physics by A. Das and T. Ferbel

Also useful (or fun) are these websites:

Particle Data Group: Constants, Units, Atomic and Nuclear Properties
Particle Data Group: Summary Tables of Particle Properties
Particle Adventure (a breezy interactive tour from the Particle Data Group)
Introductory LHC videos
Interactive Table of Nuclides from the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute
Interactive Chart of Nuclides from the National Nuclear Data Center at BNL
1964 Messenger Lectures by Richard Feynman (requires MS Silverlight)

Homework is due every Wednesday. New homework assignments, and solutions to the previous assignment, are posted weekly on the Catalyst workspace.

Midterm: Friday November 1, 12:30-1:20pm, in A110

Final: Thursday December 12, 8:30-10:20am, in A110

Exams will be closed book, closed notes, but a summary sheet will be provided. The final summary sheet is here.