Physics 254 Home Page News and information for students in the Fall 2000 Physics 254 class. Lecture Times: MW 3:25-4:40pm, Gavett 312; M 12:00-12:50pm B&L 375

Course Information and Syllabus

December Lecture Dates: December 4th (3:25pm only), December 6th, December 11th (3:25pm only), December 13th.

Final Grades

Final due date for all Physics 254 course work is December 18th, noon.

• Assignments: Postscript , PDF

  Physics 254 Syllabus

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• Lecture 1 (9/05/00) : Syllabus was handed out. Review of relativistic kinematics and some applications to particle physics.
• Lecture 2 (9/06/00) : Three cornerstones of particle physics at the turn of the century: discovery of the electron, size of the atom from Brownian motion and statistical mechanics, and Rutherford scattering. The extension of Rutherford scattering to the discovery of the quark.
• Lecture 3 (9/18/00) : Spin statistics theorem; fundamental forces
• Lecture 4 (9/18/00) : Connection between potential and momentum-space "propogator" for electromagnetic and weak neutral force. Feynman diagrams, charge at a vertex and propogator. Higher order diagrams.
• Lecture 5 (9/20/00) : Screening in the electromagnetic interaction and the running coupling. The strong force and QCD. Color charge. Gluon self-interaction. Anti-screening, the QCD running coupling and confinement.
• Lecture 6 (9/25/00) : The weak force. Lepton interactions and neutrinos. Weak interactions of quarks and the CKM matrix. Relative strength of strong, EM and weak decay processes. Symmetries and conservation laws in general.
• Lecture 7 (9/27/00) : Symmetries of the fundamental interactions. SU(2) isospin. Parity.
• Lecture 8 (10/2/00) : C and T symmetry and the CPT theorem.
• Lecture 9 (10/4/00) : Interactions of particles with matter. Ionization detectors.
• Lecture 10 (10/11/00) : Cerenkov detectors. Calorimeteric particle measurement. Common experimental techniques.
• Lecture 11 (10/16/00) : Particle acccelerators. Colliding beam experiments and energy limitations. Generations: The muon and mesons.
• Lecture 12 (10/18/00) : Generations: Strange and charmed particles. Discovery of the tau (Joe).
• Lecture 13 (10/23/00) : Generations: Rounding out generation 3 with bottom and top. Neutrino counting and the width of the Z.
• Lecture 14 (10/25/00) : CP: Introduction to the Neutral Kaon system. Cronin-Fitch 2pi experiment (Albert). Accomodating Cronin-Fitch in kaon phenomenology.
• Lecture 15 (10/30/00) : CP: Weak vs superweak CP violation. CP violation in the CKM matrix (Andrew)
• Lecture 16 (10/30/00) : CP: Unitarity triangle and significant of single weak phase (Andrew). Neutral meson mixing revisited for K, D, B.
• Lecture 17 (11/6/00) : CP: Differences between K, D, B systems. Nature of CP violation in each. CP violation and the early universe.
• Lecture 18 (11/6/00) : Neutrinos: Pauli's lucky guess. Interactions of neutrinos. Discovery of the neutrino.
• Lecture 19 (11/13/00) : Neutrinos: Two neutrino experiment (Brock). Discovery of the tau neutrino. Neutrino mixing and oscillations. CP violation in neutrinos?
• Lecture 20 (11/15/00) : Neutrinos: Neutrino mixing and oscillations (cont'd). Solar neutrino observations.
• Lecture 21 (11/20/00) : Neutrinos: Atmospheric neutrinos and (Super)Kamiokande. LSND. Sterile neutrinos? Future neutrino experiments.
• Lecture 22 (11/20/00) : Neutrinos: Other probes of neutrino mass. Neutrinos from Supernovae (Adam).
• Lecture 23 (11/27/00): QCD: Hadron structure and the quark model. Inelastic lepton-proton scattering. Bjorken scaling.
• Lecture 24 (11/29/00): QCD: Interpretation of scaling. Parton model. Jet production and gluons. Discovery of the hard gluon (Joe).
• Lecture 25 (12/4/00): QCD: Particle production at hadron colliders. Scaling violations (Brock).
• Lecture 26 (12/6) Electroweak unification: the road map. Evidence for weak neutral interactions (Albert). Constructing a neutral partner to the Z and accomodating parity violation. and symmetry breaking.
• Lecture 27 (12/11) Predicting W and Z properties. Discovery of the W/Z (Adam). Z couplings to fermions and tests of the theory.
• Lectures 28 (12/13) Electroweak symmetry breaking. The Higgs mechanism (Andrew). Hunting the Higgs boson.