PHY245B (Winter 21)
High Energy Physics - Standard Model

Instructor: Hsin-Chia Cheng (cheng [at] physics.ucdavis.edu)

Time & Place: Tue & Thu 2:40-4:00 PM, through Zoom

Office Hours: TBA

Prerequisites: PHY230AB

Website: http://cheng.physics.ucdavis.edu/teaching/245B-w21

Homework: Homework assignments and solutions, as well as lecture notes can be found on the Canvas course page

Textbook: We will not follow any particular book exactly. A recommended book which is close to our approach is "The Standard Model and Beyond" by Paul Langacker.  The later chapters of "An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory" by Peskin and Schroeder is useful for the first half of the course. Some other useful books are

• Dynamics of the Standard Model, Donoghue, Golowich and Holstein
  
• Weak Interactions and Modern Particle Theory, Howard Georgi
  
• Gauge Theory of elementary particle physics, Cheng and Li
  

Grading: There will be homework assignments every week. Doing the problem sets is an extremely important part of learning. You can't learn the subject by just listening to the lectures without working through things by yourself. You can discuss the problem sets with your classmates, but you are not allowed to copy other people's homework. Each of you is required to write up your own homework following your own understandings. Each problem set is due about one week after its assignment in class. No late homework will be accepted so even if you couldn't finish you should turn in what you have done. We will use Gradescope to manage homework and tha take-home exam. The solutions will be available on the Canvas course website.  The homework will count 70% of the final grade. A final problem set (take-home final) will count 30% of the final grade.

Outlines of the course

• Review of global symmetries and gauge symmetries
• Weyl fermions
  
• Symmetry breaking and Nambu-Goldstone bosons
  
• Higgs mechanism
  
• Standard model of particle physics
• Precision tests of the standard model
• Higgs phenomenology
  
• Flavor-changing effects and CP violations
• Neutrino masses and mixings 
• Anomalies
  

Other Information

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