Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Notation
- 1 The particle physicist's view of Nature
- 2 Lorentz transformations
- 3 The Lagrangian formulation of mechanics
- 4 Classical electromagnetism
- 5 The Dirac equation and the Dirac field
- 6 Free space solutions of the Dirac equation
- 7 Electrodynamics
- 8 Quantising fields: QED
- 9 The weak interaction: low energy phenomenology
- 10 Symmetry breaking in model theories
- 11 Massive gauge fields
- 12 The Weinberg–Salam electroweak theory for leptons
- 13 Experimental tests of the Weinberg–Salam theory
- 14 The electromagnetic and weak interactions of quarks
- 15 The hadronic decays of the Z and W bosons
- 16 The theory of strong interactions: quantum chromodynamics
- 17 Quantum chromodynamics: calculations
- 18 The Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix
- 19 Neutrino masses and mixing
- 20 Neutrino masses and mixing: experimental results
- 21 Majorana neutrinos
- 22 Anomalies
- Epilogue
- Appendix A An aide-mémoire on matrices
- Appendix B The groups of the Standard Model
- Appendix C Annihilation and creation operators
- Appendix D The parton model
- Appendix E Mass matrices and mixing
- References
- Hints to selected problems
- Index
Preface to the first edition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Notation
- 1 The particle physicist's view of Nature
- 2 Lorentz transformations
- 3 The Lagrangian formulation of mechanics
- 4 Classical electromagnetism
- 5 The Dirac equation and the Dirac field
- 6 Free space solutions of the Dirac equation
- 7 Electrodynamics
- 8 Quantising fields: QED
- 9 The weak interaction: low energy phenomenology
- 10 Symmetry breaking in model theories
- 11 Massive gauge fields
- 12 The Weinberg–Salam electroweak theory for leptons
- 13 Experimental tests of the Weinberg–Salam theory
- 14 The electromagnetic and weak interactions of quarks
- 15 The hadronic decays of the Z and W bosons
- 16 The theory of strong interactions: quantum chromodynamics
- 17 Quantum chromodynamics: calculations
- 18 The Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix
- 19 Neutrino masses and mixing
- 20 Neutrino masses and mixing: experimental results
- 21 Majorana neutrinos
- 22 Anomalies
- Epilogue
- Appendix A An aide-mémoire on matrices
- Appendix B The groups of the Standard Model
- Appendix C Annihilation and creation operators
- Appendix D The parton model
- Appendix E Mass matrices and mixing
- References
- Hints to selected problems
- Index
Summary
The ‘Standard Model’ of particle physics is the result of an immense experimental and inspired theoretical effort, spanning more than fifty years. This book is intended as a concise but accessible introduction to the elegant theoretical edifice of the Standard Model. With the planned construction of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN now agreed, the Standard Model will continue to be a vital and active subject.
The beauty and basic simplicity of the theory can be appreciated at a certain ‘classical’ level, treating the boson fields as true classical fields and the fermion fields as completely anticommuting. To make contact with experiment the theory must be quantised. Many of the calculations of the consequences of the theory are made in quantum perturbation theory. Those we present are for the most part to the lowest order of perturbation theory only, and do not have to be renormalised. Our account of renormalisation in Chapter 8 is descriptive, as is also our final Chapter 19 on the anomalies that are generated upon quantisation.
A full appreciation of the success and significance of the Standard Model requires an intimate knowledge of particle physics that goes far beyond what is usually taught in undergraduate courses, and cannot be conveyed in a short introduction. However, we attempt to give an overview of the intellectual achievement represented by the Model, and something of the excitement of its successes. In Chapter 1 we give a brief résumé of the physics of particles as it is qualitatively understood today.
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- Chapter
- Information
- An Introduction to the Standard Model of Particle Physics , pp. xiii - xivPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007