Homepage of Ayres Freitas

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Physics 3770: Topics In Quantum Physics:
Effective Field Theories in High Energy Physics

Fall 2016

• Recommended literature:
  A. A. Petrov and A. E. Blechman: "Effective Field Theories," World Scientific
  G. Buchalla, A. Buras, M. Lautenbacher, "Weak Decays Beyond Leading Logarithms," arXiv:hep-ph/9512380
  I. Rothstein, "TASI Lectures on Effective Field Theories," arXiv:hep-ph/0308266
  D. B. Kaplan, "Five lectures on effective field theory," arXiv:nucl-th/0510023
• Pre-requisites: Physics 3765 (Field Theory I)
• Lectures: TH 11:00am-12:15pm (106 Allen Hall)
• Office hours: M 3:00-4:00pm (403 Allen Hall) or by appointment

Course description

This course will introduce the concepts and techniques of effective field theories, which are very powerful for describing systems with a hierarchy of scales. Topics covered include (time allowing):

Fermi theory; construction of an effective Lagrangian; matching and running couplings; chiral perturbation theory; non-relativistic QCD; effective theory extension of the Standard Model; basics of soft-collinear effective theory.

This course is an advanced graduate course, which is primarily geared towards students interested in theoretical particle physics, but may also be of interest to students interested in theoretical condensed matter physics, theoretical cosmology, and experimental particle physics.

Homework

Homework is an essential part of learning the material of this course. Homework will be assigned in intervals of 1-2 weeks and is due one week after being handed out. You are encouraged to discuss the homework problems with each other after you have tried them to the best of your ability, but you cannot copy the solutions from each other. The homework assignments and solutions will be available for download on CourseWeb.

Some of the homework problems will be discussed in class (after they have been graded and returned). For this purpose I will occiasionally pick one student at random to present her/his solution on the board. In this way, you can learn from each other's solutions, and also practice your presentation skills.

Grading scheme

There will not be any traditional exams for this course. The course grade will be based on homework submissions.

Academic Integrity

Students in this course will be expected to comply with the University of Pittsburgh's Policy on Academic Integrity. Any student suspected of violating this obligation for any reason during the semester will be required to participate in the procedural process, initiated at the instructor level, as outlined in the University Guidelines on Academic Integrity. This may include, but is not limited to, the confiscation of the examination of any individual suspected of violating University Policy. Furthermore, no student may bring any unauthorized materials to an exam, including dictionaries and programmable calculators.

Disability Services

If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor and Disability Resources and Services (DRS), 140 William Pitt Union, (412) 648-7890, drsrecep@pitt.edu, (412) 228-5347 for P3 ASL users, as early as possible in the term. DRS will verify your disability and determine reasonable accommodations for this course.