Instructor: Hsin-Chia Cheng (cheng [at] physics.ucdavis.edu)
Time & Place: Tue & Thu 10:00-11:20AM, 416 PHY/GEO
Office Hours: Tue 3:00-4:00PM, 433 Phy/Geo or just find me when I am not too busy with other things
Prerequisites: PHY200AB, PHY204AB, PHY215AB
Website: http://www.physics.ucdavis.edu/~cheng/teaching/230A-s09
Homework assignments and
additional information can be found from the links of this webpage.
Also check http://my.ucdavis.edu/
course website for solutions and grades.
The class mailing
list is
phys230a-s09@ucdavis.edu and the messages sent to it will be archived
at https://listproc.ucdavis.edu/class-secure/
Textbook: The recommended textbook is Peskin & Shroeder,
"An
Introduction to Quantum Field Theory." It was written from a modern
point of view and is probably most widely used textbook on this subject
nowadays, so it's a nice book to have. However, we will
not follow this book exactly. We will start with a brief
introduction on Relativistic Quantum Mechanics. The standard textbook
for this
subject is Bjorken and Drell, ``Relativistic Quantum Mechanics.''
However, it contains materials much more than one can cover for a whole
quarter. We will only have time to learn
the basic ideas of the Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations. You can
download the brief lecture notes here:
A Brief Introduction to Relativistic Quantum
Mechanics
Other useful
books are
``Advanced Quantum Mechanics'' by Sakurai and ``Intermediate Quantum
Mechanics'' by
Bethe and Jackiw. There are also many useful free notes on the web
which you can find with Google. After discussing its limitation we will
move into the subject of this 230 course sequence "Quantum Field
Theory." We will follow very closely to Prof. Gunion's lecture notes.
You can
find them at
http://higgs.ucdavis.edu/gunion/QFT-I.pdf
and
http://higgs.ucdavis.edu/gunion/QFT-II.pdf.
The lecture notes are very well written
and allow a smooth
connection to 230BC for the next 2 quarters.
The 230A part of the lecture notes are close to the Quantum Field
Theory book by Mandl and Shaw, which is one of the easiest field theory
book to read, but the notes use more modern and better coventions and
notations. You probably don't need to buy this book as all useful
information is covered in the notes. The materials
covered in 230A roughly
correspond to the first four (or five) chapters of Peskin &
Schroeder's book.
There are also many other
quantum field theory books on the market with different approaches and
emphases. It is a big and difficult subject and you won't be able to
learn everything from a single
book and neither can we cover everthing in one year of the course
sequence.
In order to have a deeper and broader understanding of this subject,
you should not be satisfied with what you learn in the classes and
should keep on learning
by yourself even after finishing the course sequence, especially for
the students
who plan to do theory researches.
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. The solutions will be given on MyUCDavis course website immediately after the class on the due day and hence no late homework can be accepted. (So even if you couldn't finish you should turn in what you have done.) The homework will count 50% of the final grade. There will be a take-home final exam. You have to work on your own and are not allowed to discuss with other people for the final exam. The final exam will count 50% of your final grade.
Outlines of the course
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