The goal of these lectures is to introduce readers with a basic knowledge of undergraduate physics (specifically non-relativistic quantum mechanics, special relativity, and electromagnetism) to the `current theory of everything': the Standard Model of particle of physics. By the end of the course, readers should be able to make predictions for simple processes at the Large Hadron Collider, such as decay rates of the Higgs boson. Some discussion of the ongoing search for physics beyond the Standard Model is also included. Based on lectures given at the Universities of Cambridge (UK) and Canterbury (New Zealand).
These four lectures, given at the British Universities Summer School in Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics (BUSSTEPP), held in 2014 in Southampton, are a brief introduction to a selection of current topics in physics Beyond the Standard Model.
This set of lectures introduces at an elementary level the supersymmetric Standard Model and discusses some of its phenomenological properties. (Lectures given by J. Louis at the summer school ``Grundlagen und neue Methoden der theoretischen Physik'', Saalburg, 1996.)
This write-up of lectures given at TASI 2020 provides an introduction into precision tests of the electroweak Standard Model. The lecture notes begin with a hands-on review of the (on-shell) renormalization procedure, and subsequently highlight a few subtleties that occur in the renormalization of a theory with electroweak symmetry breaking and massive gauge bosons. After that a set of typical electroweak precision observables is introduced, as well as a range of input parameter measurements that are needed for making predictions within the Standard Model. Finally, it is discussed how comparis…
In these 4 lectures, I give a brief introduction to the principles of effective field theory and discuss their application via 3 examples: (i) the Standard Model as an effective theory; (ii) non-linear sigma models and the composite Higgs; (iii) the quantum field theory of fluids.
These lectures focus on the structure of various Higgs boson theories. Topics in the first lectures include: mass generation in chiral theories, spontaneous symmetry breaking, neutrino masses, perturbative unitarity, vacuum stability, vacuum alignment, flavor changing neutral current solutions with multiple Higgs doublets, analysis of type I theory with Z2 symmetry, and rephasing symmetries. After an Essay on the Hierarchy Problem, additional topics are covered that more directly relate to naturalness of the electroweak theory. Emphasis is on their connection to Higgs boson physics. Topics in …
These notes are based on the lectures I gave at the 2015 European School of High-Energy Physics (ESHEP2015). I discuss 1) flavor physics within the Standard Model, 2) effective field theories and Minimal Flavor Violation, 3) flavor physics in theories beyond the Standard Model and "high energy" flavor transitions of the top quark and of the Higgs boson. As a bi-product, I present the most updated constraints from the measurements of B_s -> mu^+mu^-, as well as I discuss the most recent development in the LHC searches for top flavor changing couplings.
We give a brief overview on the successes and theoretical problems of the Standard Model and discuss the basics of low-scale supersymmetry. We also address some of recent proposals for physics beyond the Standard Model and the connection to the production mechanisms for thermal dark matter.
We provide an introduction to the physics of a warped extra dimension and the AdS/CFT correspondence. An AdS/CFT dictionary is given which leads to a 4D holographic view of the 5th dimension. With a particular emphasis on beyond the standard model physics, this provides a window into the strong dynamics associated with either electroweak symmetry breaking or supersymmetry breaking. In this way hierarchies associated with either the electroweak or supersymmetry breaking scale, together with the fermion mass spectrum, can be addressed in a consistent framework.
In these lectures I briefly review the Higgs mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking and focus on the most relevant aspects of the phenomenology of the Standard Model and of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model Higgs bosons at both hadron and lepton colliders. Some emphasis is put on the perturbative calculation of both Higgs boson branching ratios and production cross sections, including the most important radiative corrections.
In these lectures I shall explain how a new-found nonabelian duality can be used to solve some outstanding questions in particle physics. The first lecture introduces the concept of electromagnetic duality and goes on to present its nonabelian generalization in terms of loop space variables. The second lecture discusses certain puzzles that remain with the Standard Model of particle physics, particularly aimed at nonexperts. The third lecture presents a solution to these problems in the form of the Dualized Standard Model, first proposed by Chan and the author, using nonabelian dual symmetry. …
In the first lecture, the Standard Model is reviewed, with the aim of seeing how its successes constrain possible extensions, the significance of the apparently low Higgs mass indicated by precision electroweak experiments is discussed, and defects of the Standard Model are examined. The second lecture includes a general discussion of the electroweak vacuum and an introduction to supersymmetry, motivated by the gauge hierarchy problem. In the third lecture, the phenomenology of supersymmetric models is discussed in more detail, with emphasis on the information provided by LEP data. The fourth …
These four lectures constitute a gentle introduction to what may lie beyond the standard model of quarks and leptons interacting through $SU(3)_c \otimes SU(2)_L \otimes U(1)_Y$ gauge bosons, prepared for an audience of graduate students in experimental particle physics. In the first lecture, I introduce a novel graphical representation of the particles and interactions, the double simplex, to elicit questions that motivate our interest in physics beyond the standard model, without recourse to equations and formalism. Lecture 2 is devoted to a short review of the current status of the standard…
These lectures start with a detailed pedagogical introduction to electroweak symmetry breaking in the Standard Model, including gauge boson and fermion mass generation and the resulting predictions for Higgs boson interactions. I then survey Higgs boson decays and production mechanisms at hadron and $e^+e^-$ colliders. I finish with two case studies of Higgs physics beyond the Standard Model: two-Higgs-doublet models, which I use to illustrate the concept of minimal flavor violation, and models with isospin-triplet scalar(s), which I use to illustrate the concept of custodial symmetry.
Lecture notes with a brief introduction to Quantum field theory and the Standard Model are presented. The lectures were given at the 2017 European School of High-Energy Physics. The main features, the present status, and problems of the Standard Model are discussed.
These notes, based on work with Herbi Dreiner and Howie Haber, discuss how to do practical calculations of cross sections and decay rates using two-component fermion notation, as appropriate for supersymmetry and other beyond-the-Standard-Model theories. Included are a list of two-component fermion Feynman rules for the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, and some example calculations.
Jet physics is a rich and rapidly evolving field, with many applications to physics in and beyond the Standard Model. These notes, based on lectures delivered at the June 2012 Theoretical Advanced Study Institute, provide an introduction to jets at the Large Hadron Collider. Topics covered include sequential jet algorithms, jet shapes, jet grooming, and boosted Higgs and top tagging.
These lecture notes provide an introduction to the theoretical concepts of flavour physics and CP violation, based on a series of lectures given at the ESHEP 2016 summer school. In the first lecture we review the basics of flavour and CP violation in the Standard Model. The second lecture is dedicated to the phenomenology of K and B meson decays, where we focus on a few representative observables. In the third lecture we give an introduction to flavour physics beyond the Standard Model, both within the framework of Minimal Flavour Violation and beyond.
In this set of four lectures I will discuss some aspects of the Standard Model (SM) as a quantum field theory and related phenomenological observations which have played a crucial role in establishing the $SU(2)_{L} \times U(1)_{Y}$ gauge theory as the correct description of Electro-Weak (EW) interactions. I will first describe in brief the idea of EW unification as well as basic aspects of the Higgs mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking. After this I will discuss anomaly cancellation, custodial symmetry and implications of the high energy behavior of scattering amplitudes for the particl…
These lectures provide a very basic introduction to different theoretical limits on the mass of Higgs scalars. Particular attention is devoted to the pure Standard Model and its Minimal Supersymmetric extension (MSSM). [Lectures presented at the XXIV ITEP Winter School, Snegiri (Russia), February 96]
These lectures provide an introduction to the physics of particle colliders. Topics covered include a quantitative examination of the design and operational parameters of Large Hadron Collider, kinematics and observables at colliders, such as rapidity and transverse mass, and properties of distributions, such as Jacobian peaks. In addition, the lectures provide a practical introduction to the decay modes and signatures of important composite and elementary and particles in the Standard Model, from pions to the Higgs boson. The aim of these lectures is provide a bridge between theoretical and e…
These lectures provide an introductory review of big bang cosmology. I discuss the expanding Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe, summarizing the observational evidence which has led to its adoption as the `standard' cosmological model and reviewing its basic properties. Subsequent lectures provide an overview of the early universe. The final lectures give an introduction to the inflationary universe, beginning with the motivating puzzles of the standard cosmology (the horizon and flatness problems) and ending with the inflationary production of quantum field fluctuations and their possible ro…
We review the flavor structure of the Standard Model and the ways in which the flavor parameters are measured. This is an extended writeup of the TASI 2016 lectures on flavor physics. Earlier versions of these lectures were presented at pre-SUSY 2015 and Cornell University's Physics 7661 course in 2010.
The text is an essentially self-contained introduction to four-dimensional N=1 supergravity, including its couplings to super Yang-Mills and chiral matter multiplets, for readers with basic knowledge of standard gauge theories and general relativity. Emphasis is put on showing how supergravity fits in the general framework of gauge theories and how it can be derived from a tensor calculus for gauge theories of a standard form. Contents: 1. Introduction, 2. Gauge symmetries in the jet space approach, 3. D=4, N=1 pure supergravity, 4. Tensor calculus for standard gauge theories, 5. Off-shell for…
These TASI lectures consider low mass hidden sectors from Hidden Valleys, Quirks and Unparticles. We show how each corresponds to a different limit of the same class of models: hidden sectors with non-abelian gauge groups with mass gaps well below a TeV that communicate to the Standard Model through weak scale suppressed higher dimension operators. We provide concrete examples of such models and discuss LHC signatures. Lastly we turn to discussing the application of Hidden Valleys to dark matter sectors.
In these lectures I briefly review the Higgs mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking and focus on the most relevant aspects of the phenomenology of the Standard Model Higgs boson at hadron colliders, namely the Tevatron and the Large Hadron Collider. Emphasis is put in particular on the Higgs-physics program of both LHC experiments and on the theoretical activity that has entailed from the the need of providing accurate predictions for both signal and background in Higgs-boson searches.
These lectures review the main motivations for future high-energy colliders, focusing on the understanding of electroweak symmetry breaking and on the search for physics beyond the Standard Model. The open questions and the challenges are common to all future projects; for concreteness, I will use studies of the potential of $\rm e^+e^-$ and pp circular colliders to provide examples of the anticipated physics reach.
This lecture provides an introduction to the renormalisation group as applied to scattering of two nonrelativistic particles. As well as forming a framework for constructing effective theories of few-nucleon systems, these ideas also provide a simple example which illustrates general features of the renormalisation group.
These two lectures constitute a reappraisal and an update of the status of the Flavour Changing Neutral Current (FCNC) and CP violation issues in supersymmetry. The first lecture discusses these points in the framework of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), while the second one provides an analysis in a generic low-energy supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model. The goal of these lectures is twofold: on one hand we present a qualitative and quantitative discussion of the threat that FCNC and CP violation represent on supersymmetry model building; on the other hand, we poin…
These lectures provide a basic overview of topics related to the study of CP Violation in B decays. In the first lecture, I review the basics of discrete symmetries in field theories, the quantum mechanics of neutral but flavor-non-trivial mesons, and the classification of three types of CP violation. The actual second lecture which I gave will be separately published as it is my Dirac award lecture and is focussed on the separate topic of strong CP Violation. In Lecture 2 here, I cover the Standard Model predictions for neutral B decays, and in particular discuss some channels of interest for…
We give, for the first time, the English translation of a manuscript by Ettore Majorana, which probably corresponds to the text for a seminar delivered at the University of Naples in 1938, where he lectured on Theoretical Physics. Some passages reveal a physical interpretation of the Quantum Mechanics which anticipates of several years the Feynman approach in terms of path integrals, independently of the underlying mathematical formulation.
In these lectures I review the standard hot big-bang cosmology, emphasizing its successes, its shortcomings, and its major challenge---a detailed understanding of the formation of structure in the Universe. I then discuss the motivations for---and the fundamentals of---inflationary cosmology, particularly emphasizing the quantum origin of metric (density and gravity-wave) perturbations. Inflation addresses the shortcomings of the standard cosmology and provides the ``initial data'' for structure formation. I conclude by addressing the implications of inflation for structure formation, evaluati…
This is a pedagogical introduction into the possible uses and effects of extra dimensions in electroweak (TeV scale) physics, and in particular to models of electroweak symmetry breaking via boundary conditions ("higgsless models"). It is self contained: all the aspects of extra dimensional and electroweak physics used here are reviewed, before we apply these concepts to higgsless models. In the first lecture gauge theories in an extra dimension and on an interval are discussed. In the second lecture we describe the basic structure of higgsless models, while in the third lecture we discuss fer…
These lectures provide an introduction to supersymmetry phenomenology. They include an overview of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. The notion of soft breaking is explained, constraints on the standard soft breaking parameters are reviewed, and the standard ansatz of universal soft masses is discussed. The rest of the lectures are devoted to understanding supersymmetry breaking more microscopically. Models of dynamical supersymmetry breaking are reviewed, after which we turn to the question of the scale of supersymmetry breaking. Both intermediate and low scales and their phenomenolo…
We cover some current topics in Beyond the Standard Model phenomenology, with an emphasis on collider (particularly Large Hadron Collider) phenomenology. We begin with a review of the Standard Model and some unresolved mysteries that it leaves. Then, we shall heuristically introduce supersymmetry, grand unified theories and extra dimensions as paradigms for expanding the Standard Model. The collider phenomenology of such models is too rich and complex to review, but we give some key examples of how the new states associated with the models might be inferred in Large Hadron Collider events. Bef…
This is a set of four lectures presented at the Theoretical Advanced Study Institute (TASI-09) in June 2009. The goal of the lectures is to introduce students to some of the basic ideas and tools required for theoretical analysis of collider data. Several examples of Standard Model processes at electron-positron and hadron colliders are considered to illustrate these ideas. In addition, a general strategy for formulating searches for physics beyond the Standard Model is outlined. The lectures conclude with a brief survey of recent, ongoing and future searches for the Higgs boson and supersymme…
I give a pedagogical introduction to the physics of electroweak symmetry breaking and the uses of effective field theory in the context of Higgs physics. Higgs boson production and decay at the LHC and the consistency of the Higgs measurements with triviality arguments, vacuum stability, and precision electroweak measurements are discussed. Effective Lagrangian techniques are used to understand potential deviations from the Standard Model (SM) predictions. Finally, I end with a brief discussion of the future of Higgs physics.
Lectures given at the International School of Subnuclear Physics: 37th Course: Basics and Highlights of Fundamental Physics, Erice, Italy, 29 Aug - 7 Sep 1999.
I give a basic introduction to precision electroweak analysis, beginning with calculation at tree-level which most simply illustrates the procedure. I then work out the formalism for one-loop corrections to the vector boson self energies (oblique corrections). This is a tractable subset of the complete electroweak program. Not only does this exercise provide an analytically accessible demonstration of the theory involved in electroweak precision analyses, it also teaches students a useful technique to analyze a large class of theories beyond the Standard Model.
These lectures provide a self-contained introduction to the essential aspects of non-supersymmetric beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics for beginning graduate students who are already familiar with quantum field theory. After a detailed review of the physical meaning of the hierarchy problem, we introduce the key ingredients of the physics of Goldstone bosons necessary for many non-supersymmetric new physics models. Next we discuss the concept of collective symmetry breaking and present the main elements leading to little Higgs/composite Higgs models. We then turn to extra dimensional theo…
This review is based on lectures on flavor physics given at TASI 2008. First I summarize our present knowledge on the fundamental parameters of the flavor sector. Then I discuss various scenarios going beyond the standard model which attempt to explain aspects of the "flavor puzzle". Relating quark masses and mixing angles via flavor symmetry is explored. Explaining the mass hierarchy via the Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism is reviewed and illustrated. Grand unification ideas are pursued to seek a pattern in the observed masses and mixings of quarks and leptons. Generating light fermion masses as r…
These lectures present some basic facts in field theory necessary to understand the quantum theory of the Standard Model of weak and electromagnetic interactions.
These three lectures review the state of our understanding of electroweak interactions and the search for the agent of electroweak symmetry breaking. The themes of the lectures are (i) the electroweak theory and its experimental status, (ii) the standard-model Higgs boson, and (iii) aspects of electroweak theory beyond the standard SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y model.
The principle components of the Standard Model and the status of their experimental verification are reviewed. Lectures given at TASI97: Supersymmetry, Supergravity, and Supercolliders}, Boulder, CO, June 1997.
With the discovery of the Higgs boson the LHC experiments have closed the most important gap in our understanding of fundamental interactions. We now know that the interactions between elementary particles can be described by quantum field theory, more specifically by a renormalizable gauge theory. This theory is valid to arbitrarily high energy scales and do not require an ultraviolet completion. In these notes I cover three aspects to help understand LHC results in the Higgs sector and in searches for physics beyond the Standard Model: many facets of Higgs physics, QCD as it is relevant for …
