How to become a
GOOD Theoretical Physicist

Quantum Field Theory

  • Classical fields: Scalar, Dirac-spinor, Yang-Mills vector fields.
  • Interactions, perturbation expansion. Spontaneous symmetry breaking, Goldstone mode, Higgs mechanism.
  • Particles and fields: Fock space. Antiparticles. Feynman rules. The Gell-Mann-Lévy sigma model for pions and nuclei. Loop diagrams. Unitarity, Causality and dispersion relations. Renormalization (Pauli-Villars; dimensional ren.) Quantum gauge theory: Gauge fixing, Faddeev-Popov determinant, Slavnov identities, BRST symmetry. The renormalization group. Asymptotic freedom.
  • Solitons, Skyrmions. Magnetic monopoles and instantons. Permanent quark confinement mechanism. The 1/N expansion. Operator product expansion. Bethe-Salpeter equation. Construction of the Standard Model. P and CP violation. The CPT theorem. Spin and statistics connection. Supersymmetry.