Particle Physics

Catalog description

This course introduces elements of nuclear structure, as well as the discoveries and ideas of modern elementary particle physics. The material covered is partly cultural and historical. The course normally starts with a review of special relativity with emphasis on particle collisions. Topics are drawn from the standard model and may include the Dirac equation; the charge-independent nuclear interaction; the four fundamental forces in nature; the properties of baryons; mesons, and leptons; the quark structure of hadrons, including flavor and color labels, asymptotic freedom and infrared slavery; parity violation in the weak interactions and other symmetries obeyed or violated in the various interactions; the electroweak theory. The focus of the class may vary between applied topics including radioprotection and nucleosynthesis, or theoretical topics including unification, supersymmetry and string theory. Three hours. Prerequisites: PHYS 374 with B or better and MATH 310. Odd spring term only.