Part III Particle Physics
Major Option
Michaelmas 2024
Lecture Slides / Handouts
Slides: one per page (no margins, online-only, with appendices, not printed -- updated with corrections where stated in the list below).
Slides: one per page (no margins, online-only, without appendices, not printed -- not altered since 11th October 2024).
Slides: two per page (as printed at the start of term, with annotation margins -- not altered since 11th October 2024).
Supplements to Lecture Slides / Handouts
Non-examinable Appendices (no margins, online-only not printed).
Non-examinable propagator supplement to handout 3.
Hand sketched notes
on
SU(2) vs SU(3) comparison, and general SU(3) multiplets. See also the Particle Data Group's professional printed summary of SU(n) multiplet properties.
Examples sheet 2024
Clarifications and Corrections to public versions of the 2024 handout:
- Slide 18: The matrix representing the metric was mis-printed as an identity matrix. The second, third and fourth ones in it should have been minus ones. Corrected in the online version of the handout.
- Slide 34: No error or correction needed here, but for presentation reasons I reversed the "run" arrow direction in the online handout relative to the one printed.
- Slide 41: The E2 in the denominator of the integral next to the diagram should have been written as E2(p1) but it was printed as E2(p2). This is fixed in the on-line copy of the handout.
- Slide 42: in the line below the words "equation (1)" are two expressions which represent the modulus of a derivative of f with respect to p1. Both of those expressions are meant to be evaluated by setting p1 equal to pStar .... however in the printed handout the "pStar" signifiers were mis-typeset with both looking like multiplications instead of sub-scripts. This is fixed in the online version of the handout.
- Slide 43: The expression given for pStar at the bottom of the page in the PRINTED version of the handout contains numerous errors. What should have been printed (and has been fixed for the online version of the handout) was the expression which example sheet question 4 asks you to prove. [Although what the example sheet calls ma is called mi in the lecture!]
- Slide 55: The opening words of the slide were printed as "The other commonly occurring ..." but should be replaced with "A commonly occurring ...". This is fixed in the online copy.
- Slide 56: NO CORRECTION IS NEEDED (slide is correct as printed) but the part of the argument where dsigma/dt is replaced by two large factors at the end of a line (approx two-thirds of the way down the slide) would be clearer if the slide emphasised that this replacement uses the result proved on slide 54.
- Slide 63: The expression for j above the penultimate bullet point is wrong as printed. Fixed online, it should read j = modNSquared p / m = modNSquared v.
- Slide 73: The printed handout omitted an i before the gamma^1 two lines anove (29). Fixed online.
- Slide 92: The printed (not online) version of the handout has a typo. The first equation on that slide containing commutators was printed with "alpha dot p" inside the commutator on the RHS but it should have been printed "alpha dot p + beta m". Fixed online
- Slide 141: This slide has two "rows" of images. In the printed version of the handout the upper row of images was printed where the lower row should have been, and the lower row was printed where the upper one should have been. They have been transposed back to their correct locations in the online handout. In the fixed configuration the first row of images should begin "MRR" and the second row should begin "MLR".
- Slide 183: There is nothing wrong on this slide. But (a) the top half of this slide is a bit pointless here, and would make more sense if inserted between slides 178 and 179, while (b) the bottom half of this side is not really useful for anything.
- Slide 188: In the online slide I have added a page reference to make clear(er) where one of the expressions used came from.
- Slide 191 and 192: Betweem these two slides the notation for the F2 proton structure function changes from F2p to F2ep. This is done to emphasise that these are structure functions for electron-proton scattering -- to contrast with those for neutrino-proton scattering in later handouts. But that rational is not mentioned on slides 191 or 192 so the current change in notation could confuse some readers.
- Slide 205: The third bullet point (printed version of handout only, not online!) contains an extraneous word "only" which should be deleted, given that tetraquarks and pentaquarks exist.
- Slide 254 was PRINTED as a normal slide, but during the lecture course the lecturer has decided that it should be labelled non-examinable -- and this has been reflected in the online version.
- Slide 293: [See also similar corrections for slides 434, 436 and 442.] The first pink shaded box, as printed said:
"Only the left-handed chiral components of particle spinors and right-handed chiral components of anti-particle spinors participate in charged current weak interactions.". It should instead have said:
"Only the left-handed chiral components of spinors participate in charged current weak interactions."
The text of the second pink box was/is correct as written and needs no change. The online version of the handout has been fixed.
- Slide 307 contained no errors as printed, however the lecturer re-wrote the online version of the slide prior to the 13th Nov lecture to (hopefully_ make the argument clearer and simpler.
- Slide 320: The top equation was repeated twice in the printed handout (a typo). Fixed in the online version.
- Slide 374: The printed handout had an ugly wording (not full sentences) in the middle box. I have replaced that online with a wording that uses complete sentences.
- Slides 396 and 397 were printed in the wrong order. I have interchanged their order in the online handout so that the slide now calling itself 396 is the one beginning "i.e. weak interaction couples" and the slide now calling itself 397 is the one titled "GIM Mechanism".
- Slide 411: the expression after the last hooked arrow on this slide was intended to be printed as a piPlus followed by an electron and an anti electron neutrino. Alas, due to a typo the anti-electon neutrino ended up as a superscript. This is fixed in the online version.
- Slides 434, 436 and 442: All three of these slides contained (in the printed version) similar wording errors to that found on slide 293 and already reported above. I.e. in all three of these slides (as printed) statements were made which incorrectly implied that "right chiral anti-particles" did or would do similar things in the weak interaction to "left chiral particles". These would have been correct if made as approximate statements about helicity (not chirality) in the massless limit, but since they are phrases as statements about chirality (not helicity) they should simply mention "left handed fermions (and anti-fermions)", etc. All these are corrected in the version of the handout available on the web page from 27th Nov.
- Slide 445: I have deleted all its contents in the definitive online version of the course, as I could see nothing in 445 that was new or necessary. Though not wrong, its mere presence could perhaps mislead or confuse or waste reader's time. It is gone!
- Slide 446: The mass on the denominator of the dGamma/dOmega expression was misprinted as mW instead of mZ as it should have been. Fixed online.
- Slide 507: There is a simple typo in the printed version of the title. It was meant to be "But is it really the Higgs boson?" not "But is is really the Higgs boson?". Fixed online.
- Slide 508: Strictly no correction is/was needed to this slide, however before the last lecture I thought it looked odd/strange that the bottom left box had no title. So I titled it "Some open questions" in an update to the online version of the handout. To fit in this title I removed the bullet point "Why is the weak interaction V-A?" .... which (it could be argued) is already covered by the second bullet point which says "Why SU(3)CxSU(2)LxU(1)Y?
Demonstrating/Supervision arrangements for 2024
Thank you for all signing up on the TIS. 54 signed up. On the basis of those numbers the demonstrators have created this doodle poll to assign students to slots. In the event of issues with the supervisions, contact the lead demonstrator in the first instance (Tom Long -- TL565).
The demonstrators ask that you use the poll as follows:
Please select ONE/TWO time slots which are the most convenient for you. We plan to have six students per supervision, so no more than six people will be allocated to a time slot. Supervisions will take place on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays (three on each day). The first supervisions will take place in the week starting Monday 28th of October. NOTE: although this poll has specific dates, this will be your supervision time for the rest of the term. Please sign with your FIRST NAME - FAMILY NAME - (CRSid), for example John Doe (jd123).
Books
There is one book with a notable connection to this course: "Modern Particle Physics" by Prof Mark Thomson of The Cavendish. I draw your attention to this book as Prof Thomson lectured this very course in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 (before I took over in 2012). He revised the course substantially over that time, and the course you see now is substantially the same as it was when he left it. His book was his attempt to turn the course into a publication, and as such, there ought not to be a book more closely related to this course than it.
Ephemera
- Link to the Particle Data Group's review of CPT Invariance Tests in Neutral Kaon Decay.
- GROSSER PREIS VON DEUTSCHLAND Trabrennen Hamburg
- Anglepoise chairs in USA15, LHC Point 1, CERN
- Rodgers MRI PhD.
- Full 2022 handout, but with 2022 bugs and features, can be found on the 2022 course webpage.
- Cernettes performing "Collider", and the first ever photo on the web.
- New (2021) Yukawa Higgs Mechanism Simulator.
- Old (2015) WavesOnStringsLagrangian relating to this Higgs mechanism simulator which is launchable here.
- Search for Non-Standard Sources of Parity Violation in Jets at s√=8 TeV with CMS Open Data.
- Second most important result ever to come out of CERN.
- My LHCb 2015+2019 pentaquarks summary.
- LHCb 2019 pentaquarks paper.
- LHCb 2015 pentaquarks paper.
- 2016 PDG entry for Top Quark mass. (Or browse via: PDG, particle listigs, quarks, quarks , t quark)
- Christchurch Earthquake, 2016, New Zealand, as seen by the LHC.
- Gauge transformation on a railway line.
- Never Lubricate the Davy.
- Prof Dirac's gown.
- BS - BSbar mixing.
- Revision notes on multiplets from a past student of the course (Zain_Ibrahim_Siddiqi, zis24) uploaded with permission.
- ATLAS Higgs Discovery paper:
- Constraints on Heffalon production at the LHC.
- Heffalon resources elsewhere on the web.
- Dirac discovers another attractive force.
- The moodle link for the course is here but it is not currently used for anything.
-
2022 version of course.
- Survey for Nov/Dec 2024 and
- A failed attempt to win Oriel College's "Eugene Lee-Hamilton Prize". The Provost and Fellows of Oriel College offer a prize of £60 for the best Petrarchan Sonnet in English submitted by an undergraduate of Oxford or Cambridge, on a subject to be chosen by the candidate. Enjambment between the eighth and ninth lines will be permitted. Some past entries from students on this course:
