Introduction to Particle Physics

Basic constituents and scales

 What is Particle Physics all about?

A set of fundamental particles e.g.,

(i) fermions (quarks and leptons),
(ii) bosons --
(a) gauge bosons (force carriers),
(b) scalar (Higgs boson)
The underlying interaction among them
Standard Model
(of particle physics)

Four fundamental
interactions in Nature:
(i) Electromagnetic
(ii) Weak
(iii) Strong
(iv) Gravitational
Standard Model
(of particle physics)

Four fundamental
interactions in Nature:
(i) Electromagnetic
(ii) Weak
(iii) Strong
(iv) Gravitational
Examples of interactions
Electromagnetic
Examples
(contd.)
Weak interaction
Examples
(contd.)
Strong interaction
Quantum numbers
1. All the particles have their definite quantum
numbers

2. Examples: spin, electric charge, hypercharge,

weak isospin, colour etc.

3. These quantum numbers determine how the

particles will interact among themselves
Spin
Quantum mechanical particles possess an intrinsic
spin which is quantized in units of Planck constant
Wave function of a quantum mechanical particle,

where,
Bosons (integer spin, 0, 1, ...) and fermions (half-
integer spin, 1/2, 3/2, ...)
Examples: electron (spin 1/2), proton (spin 1/2),
photon (spin 1), Higgs (spin 0)
Electric charge

Charged leptons ( ):

Up-type quarks ( ):

Down-type quarks ( ):

Gauge boson ( ):

Other particles ( ) are electrically neutral

Weak isospin

For gauge bosons and scalars:

Weak hypercharge
Quantum number that relates electric charge and the
weak isospin
It is denoted by Y
Related to electric charge,
To summarize
Color quantum number
Color charge:
1. Property of quarks and gluons, related to the
particles' strong interactions in the theory of quantum
chromodynamics (QCD)

2. A quark's color can take one of three values or

charges, red, green, and blue

3. Gluons are mixtures of two colors, such as red and

antigreen, which constitutes their color charge

4. Charged leptons, neutrinos, Higgs boson, gluon, W-

and Z-boson are all colorless
 Interactions

Each and every interaction maintain the

conservation of various charges
Diagramatically they are represented as Feynman
rules
Examples of interactions
Electromagnetic interaction
Electric charge:
e + (-e) + 0 = 0
Weak isospin:
-1/2 - (-1/2) + 0 = 0
Hypercharge:
-1 + (-1) + 0 = 0
Gauge boson-Higgs interaction
(Examples)
W-boson interactions
(Examples)
Z-boson interactions
(Examples)

Gluon self-interactions
Short introduction to Feynman diagrams
Feynman diagrams are a qualitative,
symbolic representation of some
particle interaction
Consists of one or more external lines
that represent the incoming and
outgoing particles, connected by
vertices
Consider the decay process

Normally, the direction of time flow is

not explicitly indicated on the diagram,
rather it is understood from the context
Examples of decay processes
Scattering processes
Scattering events will involve an
intermediate state or particle that
is drawn in the diagram as an
internal line

Particles can scatter via the

exchange of a force-
carrying particle
Examples of scattering processes

Mller scattering:

Compton scattering:
Feynman rules and diagrams
To extract any quantitative information (e.g., decay width,
cross section etc.) about the processes, we need to calculate
the Feynman diagrams
The fundamental blocks for the calculation of Feynman
diagrams are the Feynman rules
Feynman rules (FR) basically quantitatively describe the
interactions among various particles
FRs are obtained from the Lagrangian ( ) of the theory
All the symmetry properties of the theory are taken care of
in writing the Lagrangian
Standard Model
Lagrangian
Feynman rules (Examples)
Couplings
Each vertex in a Feynman diagram include one copy of
the coupling constant
Feynman rules (Examples)
Propagators
We associate a propagator with each internal line in a
Feynman diagram
A propagator is a factor that represents the transfer or
propagation of momentum from one particle to another
Some basics
Each Feynman diagram can be thought of as
representative of transition from state to state
From non-relativistic QM the transition rate is,

Recall, this is the lowest order in perturbation theory,

higher order requires more terms which are products
of
In QFT, there is a counterpart to these matrix, called
S-matrix,
S-matrix
S-matrix elements can be perturbatively calculated (knowing
the interaction Lagrangian/Hamiltonian) with the help of the
Dyson series,

In terms of Feynman invariant amplitude, , one can write

Now, we will have two procedures for decays and scatterings

 Partial decay rate for, ,

Differential cross section for the scattering,

where, is the amplitude averaged over

unmeasured particle spins and
To summarize
Calculation of some observable quantity consists of
two steps:
(i) Determination of -- using the method of
Feynman diagrams
(ii) Integration over the Lorentz invariant phase
space (LIPS)