Quantum Field Theory For The Gifted Amateur

Quantum field theory provides the theoretical backbone to most modern physics. This book is designed to bring quantum field theory to a wider audience of physicists. It is packed with worked examples, witty diagrams, and applications intended to introduce a new audience to this revolutionary theory.

Quantum field theory is arguably the most far-reaching and beautiful physical theory ever constructed, with aspects more stringently tested and verified to greater precision than any other theory in physics. Unfortunately, the subject has gained a notorious reputation for difficulty, with forbidding looking mathematics and a peculiar diagrammatic language described in an array of unforgiving, weighty textbooks aimed firmly at aspiring professionals. However, quantum field theory is too important, too beautiful, and too engaging to be restricted to the professionals. This book on quantum field theory is designed to be different. It is written by experimental physicists and aims to provide the interested amateur with a bridge from undergraduate physics to quantum field theory. The imagined reader is a gifted amateur, possessing a curious and adaptable mind, looking to be told an entertaining and intellectually stimulating story, but who will not feel patronised if a few mathematical niceties are spelled out in detail. Using numerous worked examples, diagrams, and careful physically motivated explanations, this book will smooth the path towards understanding the radically different and revolutionary view of the physical world that quantum field theory provides, and which all physicists should have the opportunity to experience.

Quantum field theory provides the theoretical backbone to most modern physics. This book is designed to bring quantum field theory to a wider audience of physicists. It is packed with worked examples, witty diagrams, and applications intended to introduce a new audience to this revolutionary theory.

By incorporating extensive student input and innovative teaching methodologies, this book aims to make the process of learning quantum field theory easier, and thus more rapid, profound, and efficient, for both students and instructors. Comprehensive explanations are favored over conciseness, every step in derivations is included, and big picture overviews are provided throughout. Typical student responses indicate how well the text achieves its aim. [This] book ... makes quantum field theory much easier to understand!" Thanks for making quantum field theory clearer! Awesome. .. approach and presentation .. just awesome !!! Best presentation of QFT I have ever seen . marvelous!!!. " transforms learning QFT from being a hazardous endeavor to actually being an enjoyable thing to do." Great job .. extremely clear guided me through many ambiguities .. I wasn't able to work out with any other book. ..truly special extraordinary text. For me, a big relief .. finding [this] text. The book focuses on the canonical quantization approach, but also provides an introductory chapter on path integrals. It covers fundamental principles of quantum field theory, then develops quantum electrodynamics in depth. See the first few chapters at www.quantumfieldtheory.info.

Quantum field theory is the basic mathematical framework that is used to describe elementary particles. This textbook provides a complete and essential introduction to the subject. Assuming only an undergraduate knowledge of quantum mechanics and special relativity, this book is ideal for graduate students beginning the study of elementary particles. The step-by-step presentation begins with basic concepts illustrated by simple examples, and proceeds through historically important results to thorough treatments of modern topics such as the renormalization group, spinor-helicity methods for quark and gluon scattering, magnetic monopoles, instantons, supersymmetry, and the unification of forces. The book is written in a modular format, with each chapter as self-contained as possible, and with the necessary prerequisite material clearly identified. It is based on a year-long course given by the author and contains extensive problems, with password protected solutions available to lecturers at www.cambridge.org/9780521864497.

This is an introductory book on elementary particles and their interactions. It starts out with many-body Schrödinger theory and second quantization and leads, via its generalization, to relativistic fields of various spins and to gravity. The text begins with the best known quantum field theory so far, the quantum electrodynamics of photon and electrons (QED). It continues by developing the theory of strong interactions between the elementary constituents of matter (quarks). This is possible due to the property called asymptotic freedom. On the way one has to tackle the problem of removing various infinities by renormalization. The divergent sums of infinitely many diagrams are performed with the renormalization group or by variational perturbation theory (VPT). The latter is an outcome of the Feynman-Kleinert variational approach to path integrals discussed in two earlier books of the author, one representing a comprehensive treatise on path integrals, the other dealing with critial phenomena. Unlike ordinary perturbation theory, VPT produces uniformly convergent series which are valid from weak to strong couplings, where they describe critical phenomena. The present book develops the theory of effective actions which allow to treat quantum phenomena with classical formalism. For example, it derives the observed anomalous power laws of strongly interacting theories from an extremum of the action. Their fluctuations are not based on Gaussian distributions, as in the perturbative treatment of quantum field theories, or in asymptotically-free theories, but on deviations from the average which are much larger and which obey power-like distributions. Exactly solvable models are discussed and their physical properties are compared with those derived from general methods. In the last chapter we discuss the problem of quantizing the classical theory of gravity. Contents: FundamentalsField Formulation of Many-Body Quantum PhysicsInteracting Nonrelativistic ParticlesFree Relativistic Particles and FieldsClassical RadiationRelativistic Particles and Fields in External Electromagnetic PotentialQuantization of Relativistic Free FieldsContinuous Symmetries and Conservation Laws. Noether's TheoremScattering and Decay of ParticlesQuantum Field Theoretic Perturbation TheoryExtracting Finite Results from Perturbation Series. Regularization, RenormalizationQuantum ElectrodynamicsFormal Properties of Perturbation TheoryFunctional-Integral Representation of Quantum Field TheorySystematic Graphical Construction of Feynman DiagramsSpontaneous Symmetry BreakdownScalar Quantum ElectrodynamicsExactly Solvable O(N)-Symmetric ϕ4-Theory for Large NNonlinear σ-ModelThe Renormalization GroupCritical Properties of Nonlinear σ-ModelFunctional-Integral Calculation of Effective Action. Loop ExpansionExactly Solvable O(N)-Symmetric Four-Fermion Theory in 2+ε Dimensions Internal Symmetries of Strong InteractionsSymmetries Linking Internal and Spacetime PropertiesHadronization of Quark TheoriesWeak InteractionsNonabelian Gauge Theory of Strong InteractionsCosmology with General Curvature-Dependent LagrangianEinstein Gravity from Fluctuating Conformal GravityPurely Geometric Part of Dark Matter Readership: Students and researchers in theoretical physics.

A fully updated edition of the classic text by acclaimed physicist A. Zee Since it was first published, Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell has quickly established itself as the most accessible and comprehensive introduction to this profound and deeply fascinating area of theoretical physics. Now in this fully revised and expanded edition, A. Zee covers the latest advances while providing a solid conceptual foundation for students to build on, making this the most up-to-date and modern textbook on quantum field theory available. This expanded edition features several additional chapters, as well as an entirely new section describing recent developments in quantum field theory such as gravitational waves, the helicity spinor formalism, on-shell gluon scattering, recursion relations for amplitudes with complex momenta, and the hidden connection between Yang-Mills theory and Einstein gravity. Zee also provides added exercises, explanations, and examples, as well as detailed appendices, solutions to selected exercises, and suggestions for further reading. The most accessible and comprehensive introductory textbook available Features a fully revised, updated, and expanded text Covers the latest exciting advances in the field Includes new exercises Offers a one-of-a-kind resource for students and researchers Leading universities that have adopted this book include: Arizona State University Boston University Brandeis University Brown University California Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon College of William & Mary Cornell Harvard University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Northwestern University Ohio State University Princeton University Purdue University - Main Campus Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rutgers University - New Brunswick Stanford University University of California - Berkeley University of Central Florida University of Chicago University of Michigan University of Montreal University of Notre Dame Vanderbilt University Virginia Tech University

This book is a modern introduction to the ideas and techniques of quantum field theory. After a brief overview of particle physics and a survey of relativistic wave equations and Lagrangian methods, the author develops the quantum theory of scalar and spinor fields, and then of gauge fields. The emphasis throughout is on functional methods, which have played a large part in modern field theory. The book concludes with a brief survey of "topological" objects in field theory and, new to this edition, a chapter devoted to supersymmetry. Graduate students in particle physics and high energy physics will benefit from this book.