Effective Field Theories Of The Standard Model

This advanced, accessible textbook on effective field theories uses worked examples to bring this important topic to a wider audience.

This 2006 book uses the standard model as a vehicle for introducing quantum field theory.

A modern introduction to quantum field theory for graduates, providing intuitive, physical explanations supported by real-world applications and homework problems.

The book constitutes a compact review of the applications of effective field theory methods in flavour physics, with emphasis on heavy quark physics. Some of the relevant applications are discussed to illustrate the method. It covers the full range of theoretical tools related to the application of the effective field theory idea: Starting from the weak interactions as an effective theory derived from the standard model, well-established methods such as heavy quark effective theory, the heavy quark mass expansion and chiral perturbation theory are addressed. Also more recent ideas such as QCD factorization and soft collinear effective theory are outlined. Finally the standard model itself is viewed as an effective theory, allowing a model-independent look at the results of the new physics. The book should be useful for the advanced graduate student as well as for scientists who are interested in the theoretical toolkit used in the context of flavour physics. It is not meant as a complete review of the subject, rather it should be useful as an introduction to the basic ideas.

This book is a broad-based text intended to help the growing student body interested in constructing and applying methods of effective field theory to solve problems in their research. It begins with a review of using symmetries to identify the relevant degrees of freedom in a problem, and then presents a variety of methods that can be used to construct various effective theories. A detailed discussion of canonical applications of effective field theory techniques with increasing complexity is given, including Fermi's weak interaction, heavy-quark effective theory, and soft-collinear effective theory. Applications of these techniques to study physics beyond the standard model, dark matter, and quantum and classical gravity are explored. Although most examples come from questions in high-energy physics, many of the methods can also be applied in condensed-matter settings. Appendices include various factoids from group theory and other topics that are used throughout the text, in an attempt to make the book self-contained.

' This book is a broad-based text intended to help the growing student body interested in constructing and applying methods of effective field theory to solve problems in their research. It begins with a review of using symmetries to identify the relevant degrees of freedom in a problem, and then presents a variety of methods that can be used to construct various effective theories. A detailed discussion of canonical applications of effective field theory techniques with increasing complexity is given, including Fermi''s weak interaction, heavy-quark effective theory, and soft-collinear effective theory. Applications of these techniques to study physics beyond the standard model, dark matter, and quantum and classical gravity are explored. Although most examples come from questions in high-energy physics, many of the methods can also be applied in condensed-matter settings. Appendices include various factoids from group theory and other topics that are used throughout the text, in an attempt to make the book self-contained. Contents:IntroductionSymmetriesElementary TechniquesEffective Field Theories of Type IEffective Field Theories of Type II. Part AEffective Field Theories of Type II. Part BEffective Field Theories of Type III. Fast Particles in Effective TheoriesStandard Model as an Effective Field TheoryEffective Field Theories of GravityOutlook Readership: For the advanced student having studied quantum field theory at the level of Peskin and Schroeder''s text. Key Features:Presents the only comprehensive book on effective field theories and their applications in different subfields of theoretical physics on the marketIncludes new topics such as soft-collinear effective theory that are not included in any other textbookKeywords:Effective Field Theories;Quantum Field Theory;Bound And Unstable States;Bethe-Salpeter Equations;Lagrangian Approach;Hamiltonian Approach;Theory Of Quantized Fields;Renormalization;Renormalization Group'

Effective models of strong and electroweak interactions are extensively applied in particle physics phenomenology, and in many instances can compete with large-scale numerical simulations of Standard Model physics. These contexts include but are not limited to providing indications for phase transitions and the nature of elementary excitations of strong and electroweak matter. A precondition for obtaining high-precision predictions is the application of some advanced functional techniques to the effective models, where the sensitivity of the results to the accurate choice of the input parameters is under control and the insensitivity to the actual choice of ultraviolet regulators is ensured. The credibility of such attempts ultimately requires a clean renormalization procedure and an error estimation due to a necessary truncation in the resummation procedure. In this concise primer we discuss systematically and in sufficient technical depth the features of a number of approximate methods, as applied to various effective models of chiral symmetry breaking in strong interactions and the BEH-mechanism of symmetry breaking in the electroweak theory. After introducing the basics of the functional integral formulation of quantum field theories and the derivation of different variants of the equations which determine the n-point functions, the text elaborates on the formulation of the optimized perturbation theory and the large-N expansion, as applied to the solution of these underlying equations in vacuum. The optimisation aspects of the 2PI approximation is discussed. Each of them is presented as a specific reorganisation of the weak coupling perturbation theory. The dimensional reduction of high temperature field theories is discussed from the same viewpoint. The renormalization program is described for each approach in detail and particular attention is paid to the appropriate interpretation of the notion of renormalization in the presence of the Landau singularity. Finally, results which emerge from the application of these techniques to the thermodynamics of strong and electroweak interactions are reviewed in detail.

Develops a practical understanding of the theoretical concepts required to understand the Standard Model for a two-semester graduate course.