Modern Elementary Particle Physics
Explaining and Extending the Standard Model

An updated edition on the now completed Structural Model, providing an invaluable synthesis of cutting-edge research for students and scientists.

Gordon Kane (Author)

9781107165083, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 February 2017

240 pages, 50 b/w illus.
25.2 x 19.3 x 1.4 cm, 0.69 kg

'The second edition of Modern Elementary Particle Physics is a comprehensive overview of the Standard Model and the main experimental results that led to that theory and confirmed its predictions. … What may be most distinguishable about this textbook is the discussion of what is beyond the Standard Model physics in Chapters 23–26. Among many topics, it covers unifications of quarks and leptons, unification of forces, proton decay, neutrino masses, dark matter, and supersymmetry. … In summary, Modern Elementary Particle Physics is an approachable textbook for advanced undergraduates and good supplemental material for a particle-physics course.' Jarek Nowak, The Observatory

This book is written for students and scientists wanting to learn about the Standard Model of particle physics. Only an introductory course knowledge about quantum theory is needed. The text provides a pedagogical description of the theory, and incorporates the recent Higgs boson and top quark discoveries. With its clear and engaging style, this new edition retains its essential simplicity. Long and detailed calculations are replaced by simple approximate ones. It includes introductions to accelerators, colliders, and detectors, and several main experimental tests of the Standard Model are explained. Descriptions of some well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model prepare the reader for new developments. It emphasizes the concepts of gauge theories and Higgs physics, electroweak unification and symmetry breaking, and how force strengths vary with energy, providing a solid foundation for those working in the field, and for those who simply want to learn about the Standard Model.

1. Introduction
2. Relativistic notation, Lagrangians, and interactions
3. Gauge invariance
4. Non-abelian gauge theories
5. Dirac notation for spin
6. The Standard Model Lagrangian
7. The electroweak theory and quantum chromodynamics
8. Masses and the Higgs mechanism
9. Cross sections, decay widths, and lifetimes: W and Z decays
10. Production and properties of W± and Z?
11. Measurement of electroweak and QCD parameters: the muon lifetime
12. Accelerators - present and future
13. Experiments and detectors
14. Low energy and non-accelerator experiments
15. Observation of the Higgs boson at the CERN LHC: is it the Higgs boson?
16. Colliders and tests of the Standard Model: particles are pointlike
17. Quarks and gluons, confinement and jets
18. Hadrons, heavy quarks, and strong isospin invariance
19. Coupling strengths depend on momentum transfer and on virtual particles
20. Quark (and lepton) mixing angles
21. CP violation
22. Overview of physics beyond the Standard Model
23. Grand unification
24. Neutrino masses
25. Dark matter
26. Supersymmetry.

Subject Areas: Particle & high-energy physics [PHP], Nuclear physics [PHN], Physics [PH]