Three books will be used in this course. Other recommended books are listed below.
Peskin, Michael E., and Daniel V. Schroeder. An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995. ISBN: 9780201503975.
A comprehensive and pedagogical treatment of QFT starting from the basics and reaching up to the physics of the standard model.
Weinberg, S. The Quantum Theory of Fields. Vol. 1: Foundations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780521550017.
A comprehensive and insightful treatment of the foundations of QFT.
———. The Quantum Theory of Fields. Vol. 2: Modern Applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780521550024.
A detailed presentation of advanced material.
| LEC # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1-6 | Non-Abelian gauge theories |
Peskin and Schroeder chapter 15 and 16; Weinberg vol. 2 chapter 15; Prof. Zwiebach’s notes on Lie algebras (PDF) (Courtesy of Prof. Barton Zwiebach.) |
| 7-11 | General aspects |
Peskin and Schroeder chapter 6 and 7; Weinberg vol. 1 chapter 10 |
| 12-16 | General aspects of QED |
Peskin and Schroeder chapter 6 and 7; Weinberg vol. 1 chapter 11 |
| 17-19 | General renormalization theory |
Peskin and Schroeder chapter 10; Weinberg vol. 1 chapter 12 |
| 20-26 | Renormalization group |
Peskin and Schroeder chapter 12 and 13; Weinberg vol 2 chapter 18 |
Recommended Books
Zee, A. Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780691010199.
A fun book that deals briefly with many of the key ideas and uses of QFT.
Srednicki, Mark. Quantum Field Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780521864497.
Very readable and comprehensive. Structured somewhat differently from this course. Part I (spin 0) and Part II (spin 1/2) are available at http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0409035 and http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0409036.
Banks, Tom. Modern Quantum Field Theory: A Concise Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780521850827.
Modern, insightful treatment of many important topics.
Brown, Lowell S. Quantum Field Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780521469463.
A modern path integral presentation of QFT. Covers QED but not QCD.
Collins, J. Renormalization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780521311779.
A complete treatise on the methods of renormalization.
Ramond, P. Field Theory: A Modern Primer. 2nd ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994. ISBN: 9780201546118.
A book dealing efficiently with QFT in the path integral approach.
Ryder, L. Quantum Field Theory. 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780521338592.
A modern pedagogical introduction to QFT including the Weinberg-Salam model and other selected topics.
Mandl, F., and G. Shaw. Quantum Field Theory. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1984. ISBN: 9780471105091.
A clear and concise introduction to the basic computations in quantum field theory.
