Department of Physics

10ΥΚ402 Elementary Particles

Course webpage:   https://eclass.uoa.gr/courses/PHYS148

Course outline

Course content

• Introduction: Natural units, summary of elementary particles and interactions.
• Experimental devices: Kinematics. Accelerators-colliders. Large detectors.
• Symmetries in particle physics: Groups SU(2) of spin and isospin, SU(3) of flavor and color. Symmetries C and P. Representations of SU(3). Classification of mesons and baryons. Magnetic moments of baryons.
• Relativistic quantum mechanics: Klein-Gordon equation. Dirac equation. Free-particle solutions. Antiparticles. Massless fermions.
• Scattering: Non-relativistic perturbation theory, Fermi golden rule. Spinless electron in electromagnetic field. Electron-muon scattering. Feynman diagrams. Scattering amplitude and cross section. Electron with spin in electromagnetic field. Møller scattering.
• Weak interactions: Fermi theory for β-decay. Parity violation. The Wu experiment. Unification of electromagnetic and weak interactions. The W and Ζ bosons. Muon and pion decay. Cabibbo angle. CKM matrix. CP symmetry violation.
• Neutrino physics: neutrino mass, neutrino oscillations.