08.128.610 Chirality and Gauge Theories

WiSe 2018/19

Lecturer: Felix Yu [yu001]

Email address is [username] at uni-mainz.de

  • Lectures are Fridays (10-12 pm, c.t.) in Minkowski room
  • This course is not for academic credit
  • References
  • Mikhail Shifman, Advanced Topics in Quantum Field Theory, ISBN-13: 978-0521190848
  • Michael E. Peskin, Dan V. Schroeder, Introduction to Quantum Field Theory, ISBN-13: 978-0201503975
  • Nicholas Manton and Paul Sutcliffe, Topological Solitons, ISBN-13: 978-0521040969
  • Adel Bilal, Lectures on Anomalies, arXiv:0802.0634

    • No lectures on December 7 or December 14. Lecture 8 was on December 18. Extra lecture on February 22 in the THEP Social Room to discuss chiral fermions and instantons.

  • Flyer
  • Lecture 1 Motivation, 2D QED (Schwinger model) and axial current anomaly
  • Lecture 2 Continue 2D QED, fermion spectral flow; Begin 4D QED, triangle diagram calculation with 't Hooft-Veltman prescription; Suppplement on global vs. gauge symmetries
  • Lecture 3 Finish explicit triangle diagram calculation in 4D QED with 't Hooft-Veltman prescription
  • Lecture 4 Comments on dimensional regularization vs. other regulators and the question of divergences in QFT
  • Lecture 5 Pauli-Villars calcaultion of the chiral (Adler-Bell-Jackiw) anomaly, begin Fujikawa's method
  • Lecture 6 Finish Fujikawa's method
  • Lecture 7 Adler-Bardeen non-renormalization theorem; non-Abelian anomalies; anomaly coefficient; rules for calculating anomalies
  • Lecture 8 Gauge anomaly cancellation in the SM; tips and tricks for anomaly cancellation; global anomalies in the SM
  • Lecture 9 Calculating anomalies in realistic theories, massive vs. massless fermions; gravitational anomalies, Witten's SU(2) anomaly; Aside: introduction to topology
  • Lecture 10 Scale/Weyl anomaly, the Chiral Lagrangian and Goldstone field theory
  • Lecture 11 Neutral pion decay to 2 photons, 't Hooft anomaly matching
  • Lecture 12 Solitons in classical field theory, kink solution in 1+1 field theory
  • Lecture 13 Continue kink solution in 1+1 field theory, sine-Gordon theory; Yang-Mills theory and topology of pure gauge solutions, instantons
  • Lecture 14 Continue instantons in Yang-Mills theory, the Theta vacuum; Supplement: periodic potentials and Bloch waves, the vacuum energy of QCD
  • Lecture 15 The Theta vacuum and cluster decomposition; Instantons and fermions; the Strong CP problem