Gauge Theories in Particle Physics—A Practical Introduction

The fourth edition of this well-established, highly regarded two-volume set continues to provide a fundamental introduction to advanced particle physics while incorporating substantial new experimental results, especially in the areas of CP violation and neutrino oscillations. It offers an accessible and practical introduction to the three gauge theories included in the Standard Model of particle physics: quantum electrodynamics (QED), quantum chromodynamics (QCD), and the Glashow-Salam-Weinberg (GSW) electroweak theory.

In the first volume, a new chapter on Lorentz transformations and discrete symmetries presents a simple treatment of Lorentz transformations of Dirac spinors. Along with updating experimental results, this edition also introduces Majorana fermions at an early stage, making the material suitable for a first course in relativistic quantum mechanics.

Covering much of the experimental progress made in the last ten years, the second volume remains focused on the two non-Abelian quantum gauge field theories of the Standard Model: QCD and the GSW electroweak theory. A new chapter on CP violation and oscillation phenomena describes CP violation in B-meson decays as well as the main experiments that have led to our current knowledge of mass-squared differences and mixing angles for neutrinos. Exploring a new era in particle physics, this edition discusses the exciting discovery of a boson with properties consistent with those of the Standard Model Higgs boson. It also updates many other topics, including jet algorithms, lattice QCD, effective Lagrangians, and three-generation quark mixing and the CKM matrix.

This revised and updated edition provides a self-contained pedagogical treatment of the subject, from relativistic quantum mechanics to the frontiers of the Standard Model. For each theory, the authors discuss the main conceptual points, detail many practical calculations of physical quantities from first principles, and compare these quantitative predictions with experimental results, helping readers improve both their calculation skills and physical insight.

Ian J.R. Aitchison is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and a visiting scientist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He has previously held research positions at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Saclay, and the University of Cambridge. He was a visiting professor at the University of Rochester and the University of Washington, and a scientific associate at CERN. Dr. Aitchison has published over 90 scientific papers mainly on hadronic physics and quantum field theory. He is the author of Relativistic Quantum Mechanics, An Informal Introduction to Gauge Field Theories, and Supersymmetry in Particle Physics and joint editor of two other books.

Anthony J.G. Hey is Vice President of Microsoft Research Connections, where he is responsible for the worldwide external research and technical computing strategy across Microsoft Corporation. A fellow of the U.K. Royal Academy of Engineering, Dr. Hey was previously the director of the U.K. e-Science Initiative and the head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science and dean of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Southampton. His research interests encompass parallel programming for parallel systems built from mainstream commodity components. With Jack Dongarra, Rolf Hempel, and David Walker, he wrote the first draft of a specification for a new message-passing standard called MPI. This initiated the process that led to the successful MPI standard of today.