Physics 535: Introduction to Elementary Particle Physics

This course provides introduction to elementary particle physics.

The topics covered are:

The periodic table:
quarks, leptons, and vector bosons.

Fundamental stoichiometry:
Feynman diagrams for weak, electromagnetic, and color interactions.

Sources:
Accelerators and their limitations

Detectors:
Interactions of particles with bulk matter and detection methods

History:
A survey of particle discoveries

Quark bound states:
Systematics of hadron quantum numbers, mass spectrum, decays and interactions

Symmetries and symmetry violation in particle spectra and interactions

Fields and Gauge Invariance Principles

Quantum Electrodynamics with applications

Quantum Chromodynamics with applications

Electroweak Interactions with applications

Advanced topics  

Prerequisites
Physics 531 or equivalent.

What is matter at a fundamental level? What is antimatter? How are matter and antimatter created and destroyed? What are the fundamental forces and how are they transmitted? These questions and others are addressed by Physics 535. This course surveys elementary particle phenomena encompassed by the standard model of interacting quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons. The course builds upon elementary quantum mechanics and special relativity theory knowledge. Introduction to particles, antiparticles and fundamental interactions; detectors and accelerators; symmetries and conservation laws; electroweak and color interactions of quarks and leptons; unification theories, are presented.

Typical Texts
Introduction to High Energy Physics, Donald H. Perkins, Cambridge U. Press, New York, 2000 [1972], 4th ed. (426 pp.). ISBN 0-521-62196-8.