PY4106: Quantum Field Theory - Syllabus, Spring 2014

17 downloads 170 Views 32KB Size Report
this field. To a large extent, our course will follow the first section of this book. • S. Weinberg, The Quantum Theory of Fields, Vol 1. (Cambridge, 2005). This is the.
PY4106: Quantum Field Theory - Syllabus, Spring 2016 Lectures: Tutorials: Lecturer: Assessment: Homework:

Wednesday, 9-10 (West Wing, W3); Thursday, 12-13 (West Wing, W7) Tuesday, 15-16 (Kane, G7) Dr. Asaf Pe’er, Room 1.01C; E-mail: [email protected]; URL: http://www.physics.ucc.ie/apeer/ 80% final exam, 20% continuous assessment (homeworks). Six - ten homeworks will be given, usual rules apply.

Books: • M. Peskin and D. Schroeder, An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (Westview Press, 1995). This is a very clear and comprehensive book, covering everything in this course at the right level. In recent years, it had become the “standard” textbook in this field. To a large extent, our course will follow the first section of this book. • S. Weinberg, The Quantum Theory of Fields, Vol 1. (Cambridge, 2005). This is the first in a three volume series by one of the masters of quantum field theory. It takes a unique route to through the subject, focusing initially on particles rather than fields. Note: if and when advanced courses in QFT will be given in UCC, they will follow the two books by Peskin & Schroeder and by Weinberg. • L. Ryder, Quantum Field Theory (Cambridge, 2006). This elementary text has a nice discussion of much of the material in this course. • C. Itzykson and J.-B. Zuber, Quantum Field Theory (Dover, 2006). One of the “classical” textbooks. Covers the material in this course, and well beyond. • A. Zee, Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell (Princeton, 2010). While I did not read this book myself, the review I read states that “This is charming book, where emphasis is placed on physical understanding and the author isnt afraid to hide the ugly truth when necessary. It contains many gems.” • M. Srednicki, Quantum Field Theory (Cambridge, 2007). While I did not read this book myself, the review I read states that: “A very clear and well written introduction to the subject. Both this book and Zees focus on the path integral approach, rather than canonical quantization that we develop in this course.”

–2– • Web resources. Some very good references are available on the web. I will base a large part of this course on the lecture notes by David Tong, available at www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/qft.html. Other good resource is the video lectures by the late Sidney Coleman, that taught QFT in Harvard for many years. His notes are available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.5013. • There are many additional textbooks on quantum field theory. There are a few (unfortunately, not too many), in the library. • My lecture notes are available on my webpage.

Syllabus (Tentative)

Week 1-2 3-4 5-6 7-8 9 - 10 11 - 12

Topic Introduction, classical field theory Free fields Interacting fields The Dirac equation Quantization of Dirac field Quantum electrodynamics