The course.

I finally had the opportunity to study some quantum field theory, and took the fall 2018 QFT I course (PHY2403) with Prof. Erich Poppitz at the helm.  In 3.5 months we blitzed through material roughly aligned with the first 125 pages of Peskin and Schroeder’s 800 page Introduction to Quantum Field Theory.  We didn’t get to any condensed matter applications, so I still don’t have a clue how super conductivity and super fluidity work.

My class notes.

On the problem set solutions

These notes are no longer redacted and include whatever portions of the problem set 1-4 solutions I completed, errors and all.  In the event that any of the problem sets are recycled for future iterations of the course, students who are taking the course (all mature grad students pursuing science for the love of it, not for grades) are expected to act responsibly, and produce their own solutions, within the constraints provided by the professor.

Contributing.

Should you wish to actively contribute typo fixes (or additions, editing, …) to this book, you can do so by contacting me, or by forking your own copy of the associated git repositories and building the book pdf from source, and submitting a subsequent merge request.

git clone [email protected]:peeterjoot/latex-notes-compilations.git peeterjoot
cd peeterjoot

for i in phy2403-quantum-field-theory figures/phy2403-quantum-field-theory mathematica latex ; do
   git submodule update --init $i
   (cd $i ; git checkout master)
done

export PATH=`pwd`/latex/bin:$PATH

cd phy2403-quantum-field-theory
make mmacells.sty all

I reserve the right to impose dictatorial control over any editing and content decisions, and may not accept merge requests as-is, or at all. That said, I’ll probably not refuse reasonable suggestions or merge requests.

 

Contents:

  • Preface
  • Contents
  • List of Figures
  • 1 Fields, units, and scales.
  • 1.1 What is a field?
  • 1.2 Scales.
  • 1.2.1 Bohr radius.
  • 1.2.2 Compton wavelength.
  • 1.2.3 Relations.
  • 1.3 Natural units.
  • 1.4 Gravity.
  • 1.5 Cross section.
  • 1.6 Problems.
  • 2 Lorentz transformations.
  • 2.1 Lorentz transformations.
  • 2.2 Determinant of Lorentz transformations.
  • 2.3 Problems.
  • 3 Classical field theory.
  • 3.1 Field theory.
  • 3.2 Actions.
  • 3.3 Principles determining the form of the action.
  • 3.4 Principles (cont.)
  • 3.4.1 d = 2.
  • 3.4.2 d = 3.
  • 3.4.3 d = 4.
  • 3.4.4 d = 5.
  • 3.5 Least action principle.
  • 3.6 Problems.
  • 4 Canonical quantization, Klein-Gordon equation, SHOs, momentum space representation, raising and lowering operators.
  • 4.1 Canonical quantization.
  • 4.2 Canonical quantization (cont.)
  • 4.3 Momentum space representation.
  • 4.4 Quantization of Field Theory.
  • 4.5 Free Hamiltonian.
  • 4.6 QM SHO review.
  • 4.7 Discussion.
  • 4.8 Problems.
  • 5 Symmetries.
  • 5.1 Switching gears: Symmetries.
  • 5.2 Symmetries.
  • 5.3 Spacetime translation.
  • 5.4 1st Noether theorem.
  • 5.5 Unitary operators.
  • 5.6 Continuous symmetries.
  • 5.7 Classical scalar theory.
  • 5.8 Last time.
  • 5.9 Examples of symmetries.
  • 5.10 Scale invariance.
  • 5.11 Lorentz invariance.
  • 5.12 Problems.
  • 6 Lorentz boosts, generators, Lorentz invariance, microcausality.
  • 6.1 Lorentz transform symmetries.
  • 6.2 Transformation of momentum states.
  • 6.3 Relativistic normalization.
  • 6.4 Spacelike surfaces.
  • 6.5 Condition on microcausality.
  • 7 External sources.
  • 7.1 Harmonic oscillator.
  • 7.2 Field theory (where we are going).
  • 7.3 Green’s functions for the forced Klein-Gordon equation.
  • 7.4 Pole shifting.
  • 7.5 Matrix element representation of the Wightman function.
  • 7.6 Retarded Green’s function.
  • 7.7 Review: “particle creation problem”.
  • 7.8 Digression: coherent states.
  • 7.9 Problems.
  • 8 Perturbation theory.
  • 8.1 Feynman’s Green’s function.
  • 8.2 Interacting field theory: perturbation theory in QFT.
  • 8.3 Perturbation theory, interaction representation and Dyson formula.
  • 8.4 Next time.
  • 8.5 Review.
  • 8.6 Perturbation.
  • 8.7 Review.
  • 8.8 Unpacking it.
  • 8.9 Calculating perturbation.
  • 8.10 Wick contractions.
  • 8.11 Simplest Feynman diagrams.
  • 8.12 Phi fourth interaction.
  • 8.13 Tree level diagrams.
  • 8.14 Problems.
  • 9 Scattering and decay.
  • 9.1 Additional resources.
  • 9.2 Definitions and motivation.
  • 9.3 Calculating interactions.
  • 9.4 Example diagrams.
  • 9.5 The recipe.
  • 9.6 Back to our scalar theory.
  • 9.7 Review: S-matrix.
  • 9.8 Scattering in a scalar theory.
  • 9.9 Decay rates.
  • 9.10 Cross section.
  • 9.11 More on cross section.
  • 9.12 d(LIPS)_2.
  • 9.13 Problems.
  • 10 Fermions, and spinors.
  • 10.1 Fermions: R3 rotations.
  • 10.2 Lorentz group.
  • 10.3 Weyl spinors.
  • 10.4 Lorentz symmetry.
  • 10.5 Dirac matrices.
  • 10.6 Dirac Lagrangian.
  • 10.7 Review.
  • 10.8 Dirac equation.
  • 10.9 Helicity.
  • 10.10 Next time.
  • 10.11 Review.
  • 10.12 Normalization.
  • 10.13 Other solution.
  • 10.14 Lagrangian.
  • 10.15 General solution and Hamiltonian.
  • 10.16 Review.
  • 10.17 Hamiltonian action on single particle states.
  • 10.18 Spacetime translation symmetries.
  • 10.19 Rotation symmetries: angular momentum operator.
  • 10.20 U(1)_V symmetry: charge!
  • 10.21 U(1)_A symmetry: what was the charge for this one called?
  • 10.22 CPT symmetries.
  • 10.23 Review.
  • 10.24 Photon.
  • 10.25 Propagator.
  • 10.26 Feynman rules.
  • 10.27 Example: muon pair production
  • 10.28 Measurement of intermediate quark scattering processes.
  • 10.29 Problems.
  • A Useful formulas and review.
  • A.1 Review of old material.
  • A.2 Useful results from new material.
  • B Momentum of scalar field.
  • B.1 Expansion of the field momentum.
  • B.2 Conservation of the field momentum.
  • C Reflection using Pauli matrices.
  • D Explicit expansion of the Dirac u,v spinors.
  • D.1 Compact representation of
  • E Mathematica notebooks
  • Bibliography

Changelog

phy2403.V0.1.258-0.pdf

  • Add a ‘On the problem set solutions’ to the preface.
  • Dedicate to dad.

phy2403.V0.1.257-11.pdf

  • Conversion to 6×9 layout for kindle-direct-publishing.
  • Parameterize the inclusion of mathematica.tex and the figure hyperlinks for those entries.
  • Add the syllabus to the preface.
  • Use amsthm proof environment to get end of proof markers.
  • Remove some excess blank lines.
  • Shrink figures.

Defects

Defects in the notes include, but aren’t limited to:

  • Review material from lecture starts needs to be pruned and consolidated.
  • Lots of atroeshious speling and grammar.
  • Couldn’t get mmacell to work with the current version, so there’s no embedding of any Mathematica calculations, which would be nice.
  • Useful formulas/review needs expanding.
  • Only the first half (up to lecture 15) has been indexed.  Problems could probably also be indexed.
  • Inconsistent style.  I started switching to theorem/lemma/proof later in the course.
  • A few DIY/FIXME’s left to address.
  • I’ve moved various calculations out of line into problems (and should do lots more of that), but haven’t always linked the context for those to the problem statement/solution.
  • lstlisting content for the shell script listing at the begining (git clone commands) doesn’t have visible dashes?