An Introduction To Quantum Field Theory

By (author) Peskin Michael E.; By (author) Schroeder Daniel V.
Short description/annotation:
This is a textbook intended for the graduate physics course covering relativistic quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, and Feynman diagrams. The authors make these subjects accessible through carefully worked examples illustrating the technical aspects of the subject, and intuitive explanations of what is going on behind the mathematics.
Description:

An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory is a textbook intended for the graduate physics course covering relativistic quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, and Feynman diagrams. The authors make these subjects accessible through carefully worked examples illustrating the technical aspects of the subject, and intuitive explanations of what is going on behind the mathematics.

After presenting the basics of quantum electrodynamics, the authors discuss the theory of renormalization and its relation to statistical mechanics, and introduce the renormalization group. This discussion sets the stage for a discussion of the physical principles that underlie the fundamental interactions of elementary particle physics and their description by gauge field theories.

Table of contents:

Part I: Feyman Diagrams and Quantum Elctrodynamics

Invitation: Pair Production in e * r e ~ Annihilation

The Klein Gordon Field

The Dirac Field

Interacting Fields and Feynman Diagrams

Elementary Processes of Quantum Electrodynamics

Radiative Corrections: Introduction

Radiative Corrections: Some Formal Developments

Part II: Renormalization

Invitation: Ultraviolet Cutoffs and Critical Flucutations

Functional Methods

Systematics of Renormalization

Renormalization and Symmetry

The Renormalization Group

Critical Exponents and Scalar Field Theory

Part III: Non-Abelian Gauge Theories

Invitation: The Parton Model of Hadron Structure

Non-Abelian Gauge Invariance

Quantization of Non-Abelian Gauge Theories

Quantum Chromodynamics

Operator Products and Effective Vertices

Pertubation Theory Anomalies

Gauge Theories with Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

Quantization of Spontaneously Broken Gauge Theories

Quantum Field Theory at the Frontier

Review quote:

"This is such a serious competitor to Bjorken and Drell that I fear for our royalties."
—Prof. J.D. Bjorken, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

"I have used the text of Peskin and Schroeder in teaching several graduate courses. It provides students with nearly all the tools required of the modern field theorist. It is the only field theory text with a thoroughly modern, Wilsonian treatment of renormalization and the renormalization group. Students are left well equipped to tackle research problems in QCD and the electroweak theory."
—Prof. Michael Dine, University of California, Santa Cruz

"Peskin and Schroeder have written an introductory field theory textbook with the right choice of material at the right level and all presented from a completely modern point of view. It provides a pedagogical introduction to the tools and concepts of field theory that will be of use to students of condensed matter, cosmology, and particle physics alike."
—Prof. Jeffrey Harvey, University of Chicago

Biographical note:

Micheal E. Peskin received his doctorate in physics from Cornell University and has held research appointments in theoretical physics at Harvard, Cornell, and CEN Saclay. In 1982, he joined the stafff of the Stanford