HAP931P Quantum Field Theory
Topic outline
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Course content:
- Classical fields
- Canonical quantisation of the free scalar field
- Interacting fields: LSZ reduction formula, transition amplitudes and correlation functions
- Path integral quantisation in quantum mechanics and quantum field theory
- Perturbation theory and Feynman diagrams
- A first look at renormalisation: phi^4 theory at one loop
- Particle scattering and decay
- Spinor representations of the Lorentz algebra
- Canonical and path integral quantisation of the Dirac field
- Yukawa theory
- The path integral for (abelian) gauge fields
- Quantum electrodynamics at the tree level
- QED at one loop
Supporting material:
Recommended books:
- Michael Peskin and Daniel
Schroeder, "An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory",
Perseus Books 1995
- Mark Srednicki, "Quantum Field Theory", Cambridge University Press 2007
- Matthew Schwartz, "Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model", Cambridge University Press 2014
- Pierre Ramond, "Field Theory: A Modern Primer"
(2nd ed.), Frontiers in Physics 2001
The first three are comprehensive textbooks which cover all the course material in great detail and much more. Our notation and conventions (but not the order of presentation of the material) tend to follow Peskin and Schroeder's. Ramond's book is focused on the path integral approach to quantum field theory.
A very thorough and comprehensive textbook, but using somewhat non-standard conventions and addressing more advanced readers:
- Steven Weinberg, "The Quantum Theory of Fields"
vols. I-II, Cambridge University Press 2000
Useful for a few specific topics but somewhat dated:
Claude Itzykson and Jean-Bernard Zuber, "Quantum Field Theory", McGraw-Hill 1980
and Timo Weigand: -
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Lecture notes, in French. If you find any errors, please let me know.
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