Course Syllabus

Textbook:

The main book for this course is Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model by me (Schwartz 2014).

A version of the relevant part of this book, in lecture note form, is available in the Files section of this canvas site. These notes are from 2012, You don't have to purchase the book, but it's a lot better: a number of equations and discussions have been corrected in going from the notes to the book, and the formatting and style is more consistent. Besides, it's a great book!

Course Meeting Place:

• T/Th 1-2:30 in Jefferson 453 

Office hours:

• Schwartz: Friday 2-3 in J455
• Schwartz: Thursday 11-12 in J455
• Kapec (TF): Monday 5:30-6:30 in G1 area
• Kapec (TF): Tuesday 2:30-4:00 in G1 area

Sections:

• Tentatively: Wednesdays 5:00-6:30 in J356

Grading:

• 65% bi-weekly problem sets, 35% final projects
• Participation is essential and it will be used to help translate your numerical score into a letter grade. This means asking questions in class, in office hours and in sections.

Problem sets:

• The problem sets in this course are hard and time-consuming. They are also absolutely critical to understanding the material, perhaps more so in this course than in any other course you have taken. Expect to take up to 20 hours a week working on the problem sets.
• Due at 5pm Wednesday either by submission on this site or dropped in a box by Dan's office Jefferson 459.
• Late problem sets will be fined 5 points per day.
• Whether lowest score problem set will be dropped will be decided at the end of the semester.

Final Projects:

• In place of a final exam, we will do final projects.
• Projects will be done in pairs (two students/project).
• A written report and an oral presentation at the end of the semester is required.
• Presentations will be around 20 minutes per person, on April 27-28.
• Projects will be on topics not covered in class. Examples are
• • Instanton methods
  • Conformal field theory
  • Finite temperature field theory
  • Tunneling in QFT
  • The strong CP problem
  • Electroweak Baryogenesis
  • Leptogenesis
  • Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model
  • Technicolor
  • Grand unification
  • Quantum gravity
  • Borel summation/resurgence
  • Lattice QCD
  • Extra dimensions
  • Hawking Radiation
  • Majorana neutrinos
  • Proton decay
  • CP violation
  • Dark matter direct detection
  • Supersymmetric gauge theories
  • Momentum Twistors
  • BMS symmetries
  • Black hole information paradox
  • ...

Lecture Schedule: 

Here is a preliminary schedule of lectures (syllabus-253b-2017.pdf). It will be edited as the semester progresses