Lectures on Field Theory and the Standard Model: A Symmetry-Oriented Approach
Luis Alvarez-Gaume, Miguel A. Vazquez-Mozo
备注：
Comments: 136 pages, many figures. LaTeX+feynmf. To appear in Proceedings of the 2022 European School for High Energy Physics (Jerusalem, Israel, November 30th to December 14th, 2022), eds. Markus Elsing and Alex Huss
发表信息：
Proceedings of the 2022 European School of High-Energy Physics, CERN Yellow Reports: School Proceedings, CERN-2025-001
The standard model of particle physics represents the cornerstone of our understanding of the microscopic world. In these lectures we review its contents and structure, with a particular emphasis on the central role played by symmetries and their realization. This is not intended to be an exhaustive review but a discussion of selected topics that we find interesting, with the specific aim of clarifying some subtle points and potential misunderstandings. A number of more technical topics are discussed in separated boxes interspersed throughout the text.
In four lectures, delivered at the TASI 2010 summer school, I cover selected topics in the application of the gauge-string duality to nuclear and condensed matter physics. On the nuclear side, I focus on multiplicity estimates from trapped surfaces in AdS_5, and on the consequences of conformal symmetry for relativistic hydrodynamics. On the condensed matter side, I explain the fermion response to the zero-temperature limit of p-wave holographic superconductors.
We give an introduction to mirror symmetry of strings on Calabi-Yau manifolds with an emphasis on its applications e.g. for the computation of Yukawa couplings. We introduce all necessary concepts and tools such as the basics of toric geometry, resolution of singularities, construction of mirror pairs, Picard-Fuchs equations, etc. and illustrate all of this on a non-trivial example. Extended version of a lecture given at the Third Baltic Student Seminar, Helsinki September 1993
These are notes of a series of lectures on mirror symmetry and topological string theory given at the Mathematical Sciences Center at Tsinghua University. The N=2 superconformal algebra, its deformations and its chiral ring are reviewed. A topological field theory can be constructed whose observables are only the elements of the chiral ring. When coupled to gravity, this leads to topological string theory. The identification of the topological string A- and B-models by mirror symmetry leads to surprising connections in mathematics and provides tools for exact computations as well as new insigh…
This paper is an introduction to Homological Mirror Symmetry, derived categories, and topological D-branes aimed mainly at a mathematical audience. In the paper we explain the physicists' viewpoint of the Mirror Phenomenon, its relation to derived categories, and the reason why it is necessary to enlarge the Fukaya category with coisotropic A-branes; we discuss how to extend the definition of Floer homology to such objects and describe mirror symmetry for flat tori. The paper consists of four lectures which were given at the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (Los Angeles), March 2003,…
These lectures contain a pedagogical review of non-perturbative results from holomorphy and Seiberg duality with applications to dynamical SUSY breaking. Background material on anomalies, instantons, unitarity bounds from superconformal symmetry, and gauge mediation are also included.
In these introductory lectures we discuss the topic of Yangian symmetry from various perspectives. Forming the classical counterpart of the Yangian and an extension of ordinary Noether symmetries, first the concept of nonlocal charges in classical, two-dimensional field theory is reviewed. We then define the Yangian algebra following Drinfeld's original motivation to construct solutions to the quantum Yang-Baxter equation. Different realizations of the Yangian and its mathematical role as a Hopf algebra and quantum group are discussed. We demonstrate how the Yangian algebra is implemented in q…
This is a writeup of lectures given at the EPFL Lausanne in the fall of 2012. The topics covered: physical foundations of conformal symmetry, conformal kinematics, radial quantization and the OPE, and a very basic introduction to conformal bootstrap.
Lecture 1 provides an introduction to dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking. Lectures 2 and 3 give an introduction to compositeness, with emphasis on effective lagrangians, power-counting, and the 't Hooft anomaly-matching conditions.
Lecture Notes on Symmetry Reduction via the Dressing Field Method
Politecnico di Torino（都灵理工大学）；Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Section of Torino（意大利国家核物理研究所都灵分部）；Universidad Católica De La Santísima Concepción（神圣隐修大学天主教）
In this series of lectures directed towards a mainly mathematically oriented audience I try to motivate the use of operator algebra methods in quantum field theory. Therefore a title as ``why mathematicians are/should be interested in algebraic quantum field theory'' would be equally fitting. Besides a presentation of the framework and the main results of local quantum physics these notes may serve as a guide to some frontier research problems in mathematical physics with applications in particle and condensed matter physics for whose solution operator algebraic methods seem indispensable. The…
At the end of the inflationary stage of the early universe, profuse particle production leads to the reheating of the universe. Such explosive particle production is due to parametric amplification of quantum fluctuations for the unbroken symmetry case (appropriate for chaotic inflation), or spinodal instabilities in the broken symmetry phase(which is the case in new inflation). The self-consistent methods presented in these lectures are the only approaches, so far, that lead to reliable quantitative results on the reheating mechanism in the inflationary universe. They fully use the field theo…
These notes form part of a lecture course on gauge theory. The material covered is standard in the physics literature, but perhaps less well-known to mathematicians. The purpose of these notes is to make spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs mechanism of mass generation for elementary particles more easily accessible to mathematicians interested in theoretical physics. We treat the general case with an arbitrary compact gauge group G and an arbitrary number of Higgs bosons and explain the situation in the classic case of the electroweak interaction where G=SU(2)xU(1). Prerequisites are o…
These notes offer a lightening introduction to topological quantum field theory in its functorial axiomatisation, assuming no or little prior exposure. We lay some emphasis on the connection between the path integral motivation and the definition in terms symmetric monoidal categories, and we highlight the algebraic formulation emerging from a formal generators-and-relations description. This allows one to understand (oriented, closed) 1- and 2-dimensional TQFTs in terms of a finite amount of algebraic data, while already the 3-dimensional case needs an infinite amount of data. We evade these …
Gravitation theory is formulated as gauge theory on natural bundles with spontaneous symmetry breaking where gauge symmetries are general covariant transformations, gauge fields are general linear connections, and Higgs fields are pseudo-Riemannian metrics.
We extend our variant of mirror symmetry for K3 surfaces \cite{GN3} and clarify its relation with mirror symmetry for Calabi-Yau manifolds. We introduce two classes (for the models A and B) of Calabi-Yau manifolds fibrated by K3 surfaces with some special Picard lattices. These two classes are related with automorphic forms on IV type domains which we studied in our papers \cite{GN1}-\cite{GN6}. Conjecturally these automorphic forms take part in the quantum intersection pairing for model A, Yukawa coupling for model B and mirror symmetry between these two classes of Calabi-Yau manifolds. Recen…
In an ungauged supergravity theory, the presence of a \emph{scalar potential} is allowed only for the minimal $\N=1$ case. In extended supergravities, a non-trivial scalar potential can be introduced without explicitly breaking supersymmetry only through the so-called \emph{gauging procedure}. The latter consists in promoting a suitable global symmetry group to local symmetry to be gauged by the vector fields of the theory. Gauged supergravities provide a valuable approach to the study of superstring flux-compactifications and the construction of phenomenologically viable, string-inspired mode…
The subject of these summer school lectures are (i) Chiral symmetry; (ii) Anomalies; (iii) Domain wall fermions; (iv) Overlap fermions and the Ginsparg-Wilson equation
In these lectures I will discuss the following topics: (1) Twistors in 4 flat dimensions: Massless particles; constrained phase space (x,p) versus twistors; Physical states in twistor space. (2) Introduction to 2T-physics and derivation of 1T-physics holographs and twistors: Emergent spacetimes & dynamics, holography, duality; Sp(2,R) gauge symmetry, constraints, solutions and (d,2); Global symmetry, quantization and the SO(d,2) singleton. (3) Twistors for particle dynamics in d dimensions, particles with mass, relativistic, non-relativistic, in curved spaces, with interactions. (4)Supersymmet…
The first part of these lecture notes is mostly devoted to a comparative discussion of the three basic large $N$ limits, which apply to fields which are vectors, matrices, or tensors of rank three and higher. After a brief review of some physical applications of large $N$ limits, we present a few solvable examples in zero space-time dimension. Using models with fields in the fundamental representation of $O(N)$, $O(N)^2$, or $O(N)^3$ symmetry, we compare their combinatorial properties and highlight a competition between the snail and melon diagrams. We exhibit the different methods used for so…
I discuss gauge and global symmetries in particle physics, condensed matter physics, and quantum gravity. In a modern understanding, global symmetries are approximate and gauge symmetries may be emergent. (Based on a lecture at the April, 2016 meeting of the American Physical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah.)
We introduce simple and more advanced concepts that have played a key role in the development of supersymmetric systems. This is done by first describing various supersymmetric quantum mechanics models. Topics covered include the basic construction of supersymmetric field theories, the phase structure of supersymmetric systems with and without gauge particles, superconformal theories and infrared duality in both field theory and string theory. A discussion of the relation of conformal symmetry to a vanishing vacuum energy (cosmological constant) is included.
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. …
We reconsider the construction of exponential fields in the quantized Liouville theory. It is based on a free-field construction of a continuous family or chiral vertex operators. We derive the fusion and braid relations of the chiral vertex operators. This allows us to simplify the verification of locality and crossing symmetry of the exponential fields considerably. The calculation of the matrix elements of the exponential fields leads to a constructive derivation of the formula proposed by Dorn/Otto and the brothers Zamolodchikov.
Recent development in noncommutative geometry generalization of gauge theory is reviewed. The mathematical apparatus is reduced to minimum in order to allow the non-mathematically oriented physicists to follow the development in the interesting field of research. (Lectures presented at the Silesian School of Theoretical Physics: Standard Model and Beyond'93, Szczyrk (Poland), September 1993.)
These expository notes are based on lectures by Yongbin Ruan during a special semester on the B-model at the University of Michigan in Winter 2014. They outline and compare the mirror symmetry constructions of Batyrev-Borisov, Hori-Vafa, and Berglund-Hubsch-Krawitz.
Three introductory lectures: on Yangians and their representations; on Yangian symmetry in 1+1D integrable (bulk) field theory; and on the effect of a boundary upon this symmetry.
We review the underlying algebraic structures of supergravity theories with symmetric scalar manifolds in five and four dimensions, orbits of their extremal black hole solutions and the spectrum generating extensions of their U-duality groups. For 5D, N=2 Maxwell-Einstein supergravity theories (MESGT) defined by Euclidean Jordan algebras, J, the spectrum generating symmetry groups are the conformal groups Conf(J) of J which are isomorphic to their U-duality groups in four dimensions. Similarly, the spectrum generating symmetry groups of 4D, N=2 MESGTs are the quasiconformal groups QConf(J) ass…
This paper contains a revised version of the lecture notes of a short course on the quantization of gauge theories. Starting from a sketchy review of scattering theory, the paper describes the lines of BRST-Faddeev-Popov quantization considering the problem of a non-perturbative extension of this method. The connection between Slavnov-Taylor identity and S-matrix unitarity is also discussed.
These lecture notes give an introduction to the algebraic renormalization of the Standard Model. We start with the construction of the tree approximation and give the classical action and its defining symmetries in functional form. These are the Slavnov-Taylor identity, Ward identities of rigid symmetry and the abelian local Ward identity. The abelian Ward identity ensures coupling of the electromagnetic current in higher orders of perturbation theory, and is the functional form of the Gell-Mann-Nishijima relation. In the second part of the lectures we present in simple examples the basic prop…
In these lecture notes, we review some recent developments on the relation between the macroscopic entropy of four-dimensional BPS black holes and the microscopic counting of states, beyond the thermodynamical, large charge limit. After a brief overview of charged black holes in supergravity and string theory, we give an extensive introduction to special and very special geometry, attractor flows and topological string theory, including holomorphic anomalies. We then expose the Ooguri-Strominger-Vafa (OSV) conjecture which relates microscopic degeneracies to the topological string amplitude, a…
Quantum General Relativity (QGR), sometimes called Loop Quantum Gravity, has matured over the past fifteen years to a mathematically rigorous candidate quantum field theory of the gravitational field. The features that distinguish it from other quantum gravity theories are 1) background independence and 2) minimality of structures. Background independence means that this is a non-perturbative approach in which one does not perturb around a given, distinguished, classical background metric, rather arbitrary fluctuations are allowed, thus precisely encoding the quantum version of Einstein's radi…
In the first part of this lecture I will give an introduction to light-cone field theory, focussing on the ``zero mode problem''. In the second part I discuss $ϕ^4$-theory in 1+1 dimensions. I will show how the dynamics of the zero modes can give rise to spontaneous symmetry breaking in spite of the trivial vacuum structure on the light-cone.
Perhaps the most important aspect of symmetry in physics is the idea that a state does not need to have the same symmetries as the theory that describes it. This phenomenon is known as spontaneous symmetry breaking. In these lecture notes, starting from a careful definition of symmetry in physics, we introduce symmetry breaking and its consequences. Emphasis is placed on the physics of singular limits, showing the reality of symmetry breaking even in small-sized systems. Topics covered include Nambu-Goldstone modes, quantum corrections, phase transitions, topological defects and gauge fields. …
We review some of the recent progress in the continuum formulation of two-dimensional string theory, i.e. two-dimensional quantum gravity coupled to $c=1$ matter. Special attention is devoted to the discrete states and to the $w_\infty$ algebra they generate. To demonstrate the power of the infinite symmetry, we use the $w_\infty$ Ward identities to derive recursion relations among certain classes of correlation functions, which allow to calculate them exactly. (Lectures delivered by I.R. Klebanov at the Workshop "String Quantum Gravity and Physics at the Planck Energy Scale", Erice, June 21-2…
These notes are aimed at mathematicians working on topics related to mirror symmetry, but are unfamiliar with the physical origins of this subject. We explain the physical concepts that enable this surprising duality to exist, using the torus as an illustrative example. Then, we develop the basic foundations of conformal field theory so that we can explain how mirror symmetry was first discovered in that context. Along the way we will uncover a deep connection between conformal field theories with (2,2) supersymmetry and Calabi-Yau manifolds. (Based on lectures given during the "Thematic Progr…
We review an approach for computing non-perturbative, exact superpotentials for Type II strings compactified on Calabi-Yau manifolds, with extra fluxes and D-branes on top. The method is based on an open string generalization of mirror symmetry, and takes care of the relevant sphere and disk instanton contributions. We formulate a framework based on relative (co)homology that uniformly treats the flux and brane sectors on a similar footing. However, one important difference is that the brane induced potentials are of much larger functional diversity than the flux induced ones, which have a hid…
This paper generalizes two facts about oriented 3d TFTs to the unoriented case. On one hand, it is known that oriented 3d TFTs having a topological boundary condition admit a state-sum construction known as the Turaev-Viro construction. This is related to the string-net construction of fermionic phases of matter. We show how Turaev-Viro construction can be generalized to unoriented 3d TFTs. On the other hand, it is known that the "fermionic" versions of oriented TFTs, known as Spin-TFTs, can be constructed in terms of "shadow" TFTs which are ordinary oriented TFTs with an anomalous $\mathbb{Z}…
