PHYSICS 557-9

PHYSICS 557-9

Academic Year 2002-03

Spring 2003 Physics 559

Time and day: 11:30-12:20 MWF

Room: A114

Instructor: Prof. Stephen D. Ellis

Office: B401 (PAB)

Telephone: 5-2396

Email: ellis@phys.washington.edu

TA: Pavlo Kovtun, pkovtun@u.washington.edu

Overview: The first quarter of this sequence is recommended for all Physics Ph.D. candidates. The general topic is particle physics with an emphasis on descriptive phenomenology, symmetries, and the general properties of particle dynamics -- a “building block” view of the Standard Model. A prior exposure to Feynman graph techniques is not required. The subsequent quarters are increasingly more focused and require a slightly higher level of technical expertise. However, it is still intended that the content will be relevant to the majority of Physics Ph.D. candidates. The (tentative) syllabus for this course is here.

The course is not intended to be a heavy burden for students already investing considerable time in starting up their research. The grade will be based entirely on the homework assignments to be made each week. You are encouraged to discuss the problems with your classmates but each student must turn in individual papers. You can also use email to address questions to me. Work turned in during the week following the due date will be accepted but discounted by 50%. Assignments and solutions will be posted on the web.

I have found no ideal textbook for this course (see comments in the following textbook list) and will attempt to account for this issue by providing written lecture notes, available both in class and on the web. I will also attempt, as noted below, to provide pointers to relevant resources on the web.

Calendar of “Beyond the Standard Model” Lectures – some with links to talks (in PPT format or otherwise)

Textbook list

Recent instances of “Science in the News” relevant to this course:

Science Times, NYT 4/22/03, “The Citizen-Scientist's Obligation to Stand Up for Standards”

MSN results on highest paying professions puts physicists at 15^th!

MSNBC News, 4/8/03 – More about LIGO, hunting gravity waves in Washington State

Seattle PI, 2/24/03 - Article about the QCD – String Workshop at the INT (2/19 – 2/22/03)

Science Times, NYT 2/18/03 - A Scientist's Prey Dark Energy in the Cosmic Abyss

NYT 2/12/03 - For Astronomers, Big Bang Confirmation, the latest news from the WMAP satellite;

            Here is a link to the WMAP web page –

        http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html

            The technical paper may be found in

        http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map/pub_papers/firstyear/basic/wmap_basic_results.pdf

It is claimed that the Universe is 13.7 Billion years old

Omega (matter-energy density) is 1.02 +/- 0.02

The matter density (includes dark matter & baryons) 0.27 +/- 0.04

The dark energy is the difference the two numbers above ~ 0.75

The baryonic density is 0.044 +/- 0.04

Science Times, NYT 12/31/02 - E and mc2 Equality, It Seems, Is Relative; Interpreting the Cosmic Rays

Seattle Times 11/20/02 Collision of two black holes will warp space, scientists say

Seattle Times 11/19/02 Speedy black hole confirms a theory

Science Times, NYT 10/29/02 - Many Universes, Several Theories and A New View of Our Universe Only One of Many

Science Times, NYT 10/22/02 - The Universe Seems So Simple, Until You Have to Explain It

Seattle Times 10/9/02 – LIGO Experiment

NYT 10/9/02 – Nobel Prizes in Physics

Science Times, NYT, 9/24/02 – The 10 Most Beautiful Experiments (Can you find the error in the text?)

NYT 9/19/02 – Making Anti-Atoms

NYT 9/19/02 – Polarization seen in glimmer from the Big Bang

MSNBC 9/18/02 – Black Holes lurk in surprising spots

NYT 9/17/02 – New Eyes in Space, Even Sharper Than Hubble’s

Physics 559 Spring 2003

Lecture 1 (3/31/03, 4/2/03, 4/4/03 and 4/7/03) The Strong Interactions I: The Quark/Parton Model (PDF version)

Lecture 2 (4/7/03, 4/9/03 and 4/11/03) The Strong Interactions II: The QCD Improved Parton Model (in PDF)

Lecture 3 (4/14/03, 4/16/03 and 4/18/03) The Strong Interactions III: More on the QCD Improved Parton Model and Perturbative QCD

Lecture 4 (4/21/03, 4/23/03, 4/25/03 and 4/30/03) The Strong Interactions IV: Even More on the QCD Improved Parton Model and Perturbative QCD

Lecture 5 (5/2/03 and 6/2/03)) The Strong Interactions V: Final Discussion of the QCD Improved Parton Model and Perturbative QCD

Lecture 6 (6/2/03, 6/4/03 and 6/6/03) Some Final Comments on QCD: Nonperturbative Structure and the Vacuum

Physics 559 Homework Assignments

HW I Solutions (4/7/03)

HW II Solutions (4/11/03) Comments/Hints

HW III Solutions (4/18/03)

HW IV Solutions (4/25/03)

HW V Solutions (5/2/03)

HW VI Solutions (5/12/03)

Physics 558 Winter 2003

Lecture 1 (1/6/03) Local Gauge Symmetries and Gauge Bosons – A (Quick) Review and some Group Theory

Lecture 2 (1/10/03 and 1/13/03) Introduction to SuperSymmetry

Lecture 2 Appendix (1/15/03) Brief Introduction to SUSY and Fields: The Wess-Zumino Model

Lecture 3 (1/17/03, 1/22/03 and 1/24/03) (Re) Introduction to QCD, Feynman rules and renormalized couplings

Lecture 3 Appendix 1 (1/22/03) Comments on propagators

Lecture 3 Appendix 2 (1/24/03) Dimensional Regularization

Lecture 4 (1/24/03) QED, Feynman rules and cross sections

Lecture 5 (1/27/03) More on Scattering in E&M

Lecture 6 (1/29/03) Reintroduction to the effective theory of the weak interactions

Lecture 7 (1/31/03, 2/3/03 and 2/5/03) Symmetry Breaking

Lecture 8 (2/7/03) Standard Model of Electroweak Interactions (Weinberg-Salam)

Lecture 9 (2/10/02) Feynman rules for Electroweak Interactions

Lecture 10 (2/12/03) Calculating Electroweak Interactions

Lecture 11 (2/14/03 and 2/19/03) More Comments on the SM of Electroweak Interactions

Lecture 12 (2/19/03, 2/24/03 and 2/26/03) Neutrino masses, mixing and oscillations

Lecture 13 (2/28/03, 3/3/03 and 3/5/03) The Neutral Kaon System: An Introduction

Lecture 14 (3/7/03 and 3/10/03) The Neutral Kaon System: Technical Details

Lecture 15 (3/10/03 and 3/12/03) The Neutral Kaon System: Technical Details II (Decays and CP violation)

Lecture 16 (3/14/03) The Neutral B System

Physics 557 Lectures Autumn 2002

Lecture 1 (9/30/02) Introduction

Lecture 2 (10/2/02, 10/4/02, 10/7/02 and 10/9/02) Units and Sizes

Lecture 3 (10/11/02) Introduction to Cosmology

Lecture 4 (10/14/2 and 10/16/02) Relativistic Notation and Kinematics

Lecture 5 (10/18/02, 10/21/02 and 10/23/02) Introduction to Group Theory

Lecture 5 Appendix (10/23/02) Antisymmetric Structure Constants

Lecture 6 (10/25/02 and 10/28/02) Collisions, Scattering and more Kinematics

Lecture 8 (10/30/02, 11/1/02 and 11/4/02) Quantum Numbers of the Standard Model

Lecture 9 (11/6/02 and 11/8/02) Intro to the Particles – Leptons, Nucleons and Pions

Lecture 7 (11/13/02) Accelerators, Detectors and Experiments (from PowerPoint)

Lecture 9 Appendix (11/15/02) Spin, helicity, handedness, etc.

Lecture 10 (11/18/02) Strangeness, Resonances and Flavor SU(3)

Lecture 10 Appendix (11/20/02) Hadron Masses

Lecture 11 (11/22/02 and 11/25/02) Excitations and Regge Behavior

Lecture 12 (11/27/02, 12/2/02 and 12/4/02) Even Heavier Quarks (SU(4) Appendix)

Lecture 13 (12/6/02 and 12/9/02) Local Gauge Symmetries and Gauge Bosons I - “Classical” QED

Lecture 14 (12/11/02) Local Gauge Symmetries and Gauge Bosons II - QED, SU(2) and QCD

Old Homework with solutions:

557 - HWI, HWII, HWIII, HWIV, HWV, HWVI, HWVII, HWVIII

558 – HWI, HWII, HWIII, HWIV, HWV, HWVI, HWVII, HWVIII

Useful results for units (“natural” particle physics units) and sizes

Various matrices and structure constants for the useful group SU(3)

Other Web based resources:

My lectures on QCD at the CTEQ 2000 Summer School (in postscript, large files!!): Lecture 1, Lecture 2, Lecture 3, Lecture 4

The Particle Data Group, of particular interest is the “quick” overview of particle physics, the Particle Adventure, offered by the PDG

Homepage for Fermilab, Fermilab also offers a quick introduction to particle physics (here is another similar web page from our friends north of the border)

Want an introduction to String Theory? Go to its “official” web site!