Short Courses
The Center for Fundamental Physics (CFP) introduces the following short courses:
Lecturer: Dr. Ali Nassar
The main objective of this course is to understand the role of symmetry in particle physics. This amounts to the study of the representation theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras.
The main topics covered are:
- The way symmetry is realized in classical physics, quantum physics, quantum field theory, and general relativity.
- Finite, discrete, and continuous groups.
- Lie groups and Lie algebras.
- Unitary and special unitary groups.
- Representations of Lie algebras.
- Representation theory of SU(2) and its application in quantum mechanics and particle physics.
- Lorentz group.
- The symmetry structure of the standard model.
- Symmetry breaking.
The main references of the course are:
- Lie Algebras in Particle Physics: From Isospin to Unified Theories, Howard Georgi.
- Gauge Ttheory of Elementary Particle Physics, Cheng and Li.
Lecturer: Mr. Waleed Abdallah
1. Preliminaries
- The Klein-Gordon equation
- The Lagrangian of complex scalar fields
- The Dirac equation and the Dirac field
- Chiral representation
- Maxwell’s equations
- The Lagrangian of electromagnetism
2. Electrodynamics
- The Dirac equation with an electromagnetic field
- Gauge transformations and symmetry
- Parity (P) and charge conjugation (C) of the electrodynamics Lagrangian
3. Weak interactions: phenomenological input of the standard model
- Beta decay and fermi theory
- Parity violation and weak interactions
- Leptonic and hadronic currents
- Left and right components of fermions
4. Weak and electromagnetic (EM) interactions
- Similarity of the weak and EM interactions
- Intermediate bosons
- Unification and symmetry
5. Symmetry and the standard model
- Spontaneous symmetry breaking
- SU(2) symmetry
- The SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y theory
- Symmetry breaking via the Higgs mechanism
- Mass spectrum
- Weak mixing angle