Advanced Concepts in Particle and Field Theory

This 2015 advanced textbook, now OA, provides students with a unified understanding of all matter at a fundamental level.

Tristan Hübsch (Author)

9781009291514, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 February 2023

575 pages
25.4 x 20.3 x 2.9 cm, 1.25 kg

Uniting the usually distinct areas of particle physics and quantum field theory, gravity and general relativity, this expansive and comprehensive textbook of fundamental and theoretical physics describes the quest to consolidate the elementary particles that are the basic building blocks of nature. Designed for advanced undergraduates and graduate students and abounding in worked examples and detailed derivations, as well as historical anecdotes and philosophical and methodological perspectives, this textbook provides students with a unified understanding of all matter at the fundamental level. Topics range from gauge principles, particle decay and scattering cross-sections, the Higgs mechanism and mass generation, to spacetime geometries and supersymmetry. By combining historically separate areas of study and presenting them in a logically consistent manner, students will appreciate the underlying similarities and conceptual connections across these fields. This title, first published in 2015, has been reissued as an Open Access publication on Cambridge Core.

Part I. Preliminaries: 1. The nature of observing nature
2. Fundamental physics: elementary particles and processes
Part II. The Standard Model: 3. Physics in spacetime
4. The quark model: combinatorics and groups
5. Gauge symmetries and interactions
6. Non-abelian gauge symmetries and interactions
7. The standard model
Part III. Beyond the Standard Model: 8. Unification: the fabric of understanding nature
9. Gravity and the geometrization of physics
10. Supersymmetry: boson-fermion unification
11. Strings: unification of all foundations of reality
Part IV. Appendices: A. Groups: structure and notation
B. A lexicon
C. A few more details
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Mathematical physics [PHU], Particle & high-energy physics [PHP], Physics [PH], Mathematics & science [P]