Ebook: Elementary Particle Physics: Concepts and Phenomena

This book grew-how could it be otherwise?-out of a series oflectures which the author held at the University of Heidelberg. The purpose ofthese lectures was to give an introduction to the phenomenology of elementary particles for students both of theoretical and experimental orientation. With the present book the author has set himself the same aim. The reader is assumed to be familiar with ordinary nonrelativistic quantum mechanics as presented, e.g., in the following books: Quantum Mechanics, by L.1. Schiff (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1955); Quantum Mechanics, Vol. I, by K. Gottfried (W.A. Benjamin, Reading, Ma., 1966). The setup of the present book is as follows. In the first part we present some basic general principles and concepts which are used in elementary particle physics. The reader is supposed to learn here the "language" of particle physics. An introductory chapter deals with special relativity, of such funda­ mental importance for particle physics, which most ofthe time is high energy, i.e., highly relativistic physics. Further chapters of this first part deal with the Dirac equation, with the theory of quantized fields, and with the general definitions of the scattering and transition matrices and the cross-sections.

---

---

Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xix
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Introduction....Pages 3-9
The Theory of Special Relativity and Relativistic Kinematics....Pages 10-32
Particles and Fields....Pages 33-54
The Dirac Equation and the Dirac Field....Pages 55-79
The Scattering Matrix and the Scattering Cross-Section....Pages 80-93
Front Matter....Pages 95-95
Introductory Remarks....Pages 97-100
The Quantization of the Free Electromagnetic Field....Pages 101-113
Further Aspects of the Theory of the Free Dirac Field....Pages 114-120
Electromagnetic Coupling and the Perturbation Expansion....Pages 121-127
Simple Reactions in Quantum Electrodynamics....Pages 128-141
The Muon and Muon Pair Production in Electron-Positron Annihilation....Pages 142-148
External Fields....Pages 149-159
Positronium....Pages 160-170
Radiative Corrections....Pages 171-178
Front Matter....Pages 179-179
Historical Overview....Pages 181-194
Phenomenology of Hadronic Reactions....Pages 195-222
Internal Symmetries of the Strong Interaction and the Quark Model....Pages 223-245
The Na?ve Parton Model....Pages 246-272
The Basic Principles of Quantum Chromodynamics....Pages 273-294
Jet and Quarkonium Physics....Pages 295-321
Front Matter....Pages 323-323
From ?-Decay to the W-Boson. A Historical Survey....Pages 325-337
The Lagrange Densities of Quantum Flavor Dynamics and of the Standard Model....Pages 338-371
Decay Processes in the Standard Model and the Determination of the Quark Mixing Angles in the Charged Current....Pages 372-394
The Physics of the Z-, W-, and Higgs Bosons....Pages 395-412
The System of Neutral K-Mesons and CP Violation....Pages 413-438
Order and Disorder in Elementary Particle Physics....Pages 439-459
Back Matter....Pages 460-469
....Pages 470-559