Lectures

Wednesdays: 1215-1400 in E5-101

Thursdays: 1415-1600 in E5-101

The first lecture takes place on August 19th.

Exercise guidance

Wednesdays: 0815-1000 in C4-118

The first exercise guidance hour takes place on August 26th. The teaching assistant in the course is tba.

Reference group

Tba

Exam

Tba

Question hour

Tba

Description and notes

The curriculum is defined by the lectures, based on corresponding chapters in the Griffiths book "Introduction to Elementary Particles" (2nd edition), and belonging extra notes for each chapter (will be posted below). 

The vast majority of the curriculum will be covered in the lectures, but some material might be assigned to self-study. 

Complementary books/material

• Modern Particle Physics, M. Thomson (1st edition)

Extra notes

• Neutrino oscillations

• Energy-time uncertainty principle and its relation to measuring particle lifetimes

• Example showing how co- and contravariant vectors transform differently

• Introduction to classical differential scattering cross section

• Explanation for the form of the spin-rotation operator

• Example of how to deduct the intrinsic parity of a particle experimentally (page 3)

• Feynman rule for fermion loop in QED

• Derivation of conserved current in relativistic field theories

• Details on Higgs boson discovery (last part of course)

Rough plan for the semester - deviations may occur. Numbers in parentheses refers to section in Griffiths 2nd edition.

Week 34
Introduction

Week 35
Elementary particle dynamics

Week 36
Relativistic kinematics

Week 37
Symmetries part I

Week 38
Symmetries part II + Feynman rules part I

Week 39
Feynman rules part II + QED part I 

Week 40
QED part II

Week 41
QED part III

Week 42
QCD part I 

Week 43
QCD part II 

Week 44
Weak interactions part I

Week 45
Weak interactions part II

Week 46:  Relativistic field and gauge theories part I
Higgs mechanism (10.9), Yang-Mills theory (10.4)

Week 47: Relativistic field and gauge theories part II
Discovery of Higgs boson (see note on webpage)

Exercises

The exercises are not mandatory, but highly recommended. Complete collection problems + solutions found here.

August tba - Exercise #1

Problem text #1 | Solution #1 

September tba - Exercise #2

Problem text #2 | Solution #2 

September tba - Exercise #3

Problem text #3 | Solution #3 

Exams from previous years

Here are some older exams for this course. The ones made by Jacob Linder (2012-2015) are representative of what this year's exam could look like.

The solution for the 2025 exam is here.