Lectures On Elementary Particles And Scattering Theory

The conclusive volume of the Brandeis University Summer Institute lecture series of 1970 on theories of interacting elementary particles consisting of five sets of lectures. The five sets of lectures are as follows: Rudolph Haag (II. Institut fur Theoretische Physik der Universitat Hamburg) on "Observables and Fields": introduction; axiomatic quantum field theory in various formulations; structure of superselection rules; charge quantum numbers; statistics; parastatistics. Maurice Jacob (CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research) on "Regge Models and Duality": introduction; duality in a semi-local way; duality and unitary symmetry; dual models for meson-meson scattering; dual models for production process; from dual models to a dual theory. Henry Primakoff (University of Pennsylvania) on "Weak Interactions": introduction; lepton conversation and the implications of a possible lepton non-conversation; first-order and second-order weak collision processes; "abnormalities in the weak currents and how to discover them; conclusion. Michael C. Reed (Princeton University) on "The GNS Construction--A Pedagogical Example": infinite tensor products of Hilbert spaces; the canonical anti-commutation relations; the example; the example--via the GNS construction. Bruno Zumino (CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research) on "Effective Lagrangians and Broken Symmetries": Introduction; effective action and phenomenological fields; Ward identities and the effective action; Goldstone's theorem; non-linear realizations; massive Yang-Mills fields as phenomenological fields; broken scale invariance; the fifteen parameter conformal group and the Weyl transformations; conversion identities and trace identities; invariant actions; SU(3)xSU(3) and conformal invariance; strong gravitation; concluding remarks.

This book grew-how could it be otherwise?-out of a series oflectures which the author held at the University of Heidelberg. The purpose ofthese lectures was to give an introduction to the phenomenology of elementary particles for students both of theoretical and experimental orientation. With the present book the author has set himself the same aim. The reader is assumed to be familiar with ordinary nonrelativistic quantum mechanics as presented, e.g., in the following books: Quantum Mechanics, by L.1. Schiff (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1955); Quantum Mechanics, Vol. I, by K. Gottfried (W.A. Benjamin, Reading, Ma., 1966). The setup of the present book is as follows. In the first part we present some basic general principles and concepts which are used in elementary particle physics. The reader is supposed to learn here the "language" of particle physics. An introductory chapter deals with special relativity, of such funda mental importance for particle physics, which most ofthe time is high energy, i.e., highly relativistic physics. Further chapters of this first part deal with the Dirac equation, with the theory of quantized fields, and with the general definitions of the scattering and transition matrices and the cross-sections.

A fascinating and accessible book by Nobel laureates Richard Feynman and Steven Weinberg.