Subatomic Physics

Generalities

This lecture series is intended as a follow-up to the subatomic physics part of the lecture series on the Structure of Matter (Structuur der Materie), and aims at providing a more solid basis of our understanding of particle physics.

• information in the prospectus (in Dutch..)
• lecturer: Frank Filthaut
• this lecture course in Brightspace

Lecture notes

The most up-to-date version can be found here.
Slides shown during the lectures will also be made available, through BlackBoard.

Topics discussed during the lectures

Note that the list below also contains indications (where possible) of where to find these topics in the lecture notes (L) or in the book by Griffiths (G). Note that the list is being updated to reflect past lectures but otherwise corresponds to the topics covered in last year's lecture series, and so should be taken with some caution.

• Week 1:
  • Dirac equation (L: 2.3.1, 2.3.2; G: 7.1, 7.2)
  • Electromagnetism and the gauge degree of freedom (L: 2.2.2, 2.2.3; G: 7.4)
  • Magnetic dipole moment of the electron: g=2 (L: 2.4)
• Week 2:
  • Time-dependent perturbation theory (L: 2.2.1, 2.3.3)
  • Transition amplitudes, Feynman diagrams, and Feynman rules (L: 2.2.4, 2.3.4; G: 7.5)
  • Fermi's Golden Rule for scattering and decay processes (L: 2.4; G: 6.2)
• Week 3:
  • Magnetic dipole moment of the electron: higher-order corrections (L: 2.4)
  • Isospin; pion spin and parity; resonances (L: 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3; G: 4.3)
  • Strangeness, "Eightfold Way", colour (L: 3.1.4, 3.1.5, 3.1.6; G: 1.6, 1.7, 1.8)
• Week 4:
  • Heavy quarks (L: 3.1.8; G: 1.9)
  • Elastic and Deep-inelastic electron-proton scattering (L: 3.2; G: 8.2)
  • QCD, running coupling constant (L: 3.3; G: 8.3, 8.6)
• Week 5:
  • Jets, fragmentation; hadron production in electron-positron scattering; interactions at hadron colliders (L: 3.4, 3.5; G: 8.1)
  • Leptons and neutrinos (L: 4.1.1; G: 1.5)
  • Parity violation (experiment) (L: 4.4.1; G: 4.4.1)
  • Chirality and parity violation (theory) (L: 4.4.2; G: 9.7.1)
• Week 6:
  • W and Z bosons (L: 4.1.2; G: 1.10)
  • Quarks and the weak interaction (L: 4.3; G: 9.5)
• Week 7:
  • Mixing and CP violation (L: 4.5 (except 4.5.4), 4.6; G: 4.4.3)
  • Neutrino oscillations (L: 4.7; G: 11)

Exercises

Exercises (and their solutions) will be made available through Brightspace.

Please hand in your completed solutions to the exercises before the following problem session, through the Brightspace "Assignments" feature.
For solutions handed in later, it is at the discretion of the teaching assistants, Marion Missio and Bart Zonneveld to decide whether they will still be checked (there are no bonus points associated with completing the problems, so this is solely to improve the feedback on your completed solutions). Note that for Marion you would need to hand them in in English.

Literature

• D.J. Griffiths: Introduction to Elementary Particles, 2^nd edition (2008), John Wiley and Sons ISBN: 978-3-527-40601-2.
  This is the latest edition of Griffiths' popular introduction to particle physics.
  This second edition features the most important developments in the field seen since the appearance of the first edition.
  The only lack is in the treatment of the topic of deep-inelastic scattering, which will be covered in the lectures. In addition, the coverage of the topics of CP violation and neutrino oscillations is somewhat superficial, and the Higgs mechanism (and Higgs physics) are not described.
• D.J. Griffiths: Introduction to Elementary Particles (1987), John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 0-471-60386-4.
  The corresponding first edition, including the above-mentioned discussion of deep-inelastic scattering.
  It is (necessarily) somewhat out of date, but apart from this is still a good book.
• F. Halzen, A.D. Martin: Quarks & Leptons (1984), ISBN 0-471-88741-2.
  Also a book written by theoreticians, and of a somewhat higher level than the book by Griffiths. It is also somewhat outdated.
• D.H. Perkins: Introduction to High Energy Physics, 4^th edition (2000), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-62196-8.
  Yet another "standard" textbook, written by an experimentalist instead of a theoretician; this affects the presentation of details.
• A. Bettini: Introduction to Elementary Particle Physics, 2^nd edition (2014), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-107-05040-2.
  Another book written by an experimentalist; however, in general it does cover the more theoretical parts adequately. It is quite recent, and covers even the discovery of the Higgs boson, etc.
• M. Thomson: Modern Particle Physics (2013), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-107-03426-6.
  Yet another book written by an experimentalist. While it is not very theory-heavy, it offers a pleasant degree of rigour and is well written.

Other

• review of particles and their properties by the Particle Data Group
• online Parton Distribution Function plotter