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Particle Physics LECTURE 8
Georgia Karagiorgi Department of Physics, Columbia University
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SYNOPSIS Session 1: Introduction
Session 2: History of Particle Physics Session 3: Special Topics I: Special Relativity Session 4: Special Topics II: Quantum Mechanics Session 5: Experimental Methods in Particle Physics Session 6: Standard Model: Overview Session 7: Standard Model: Limitations and challenges Session 8: Neutrinos: How experiments drive theoretical developments Session 9: Close up: A modern neutrino experiment Session 10: Hands on: Design your own experiment! Session 11: Beyond-Standard-Model Physics Session 12: Beyond-Standard-Model Physics Lecture materials are posted at:
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The Standard Model: Overview
A minimal theoretical framework(?)
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The “Standard Model” The theory which attempts to fully describe the weak, electromagnetic, and strong interactions within a common framework: “A ‘common ground’ that would unite all of laws and theories which describe particle dynamics (weak interactions, EM,…) into one integrated theory of everything, of which all the other known laws would be special cases, and from which the behavior of all matter and energy can be derived.” A theory of “almost everything”: Does not accommodate gravity, dark matter, dark energy. Standard Model: good theory, but “old news” The SM was solidified in the 1970’s, with the discovery of quarks (confirmation of theory of strong interactions) Under scrutiny for the last 40 years; has managed to survive experimental tests! All but 1 particles predicted by this theory have been found experimentally! We already know it’s incomplete (“almost everything,” plus it has some “unnatural properties”). See next lecture on this!
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Today’s agenda Historical background (will not cover this; see lecture 2) SM particle content SM particle dynamics Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) Weak Interactions Force unification Lagrangian/Field formulation Higgs mechanism Tests and predictions
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The world, according to a particle physicist
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Courtesy of…
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SM particle content Fermions: Quarks and Leptons Spin-1/2 particles Bosons: Force mediators and Higgs field Integer-spin particles (+ corresponding antiparticles…)
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Particle “charge” Quarks: Color Electric Weak
Quarks Leptons (charged) (neutrinos) There are no free quarks. They form colorless composite objects, hadrons: baryons (qqq) mesons (qq) ☐ ☐ ☐
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Pop Quiz !!! Are hadrons bosons or fermions?
Particle “charge” Quarks: Color Electric Weak Quarks Leptons (charged) (neutrinos) There are no free quarks. They form colorless composite objects, hadrons: baryons (qqq) mesons (qq) Pop Quiz !!! Are hadrons bosons or fermions? ☐ ☐ ☐
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Particle “charge” Quarks: Color Electric Weak
Quarks Leptons (charged) (neutrinos) There are no free quarks. They form colorless composite objects, hadrons: baryons (qqq) mesons (qq) Pop Quiz !!! Are hadrons bosons or fermions? They can be either fermions or bosons. ☐ ☐ ☐ H. Fearn CSUF Physics
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Particle “charge” Leptons: Color Electric Weak
Quarks Leptons (charged) (neutrinos) They can exist as free particles. ☐ ☐ ☐
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Particle “charge” Leptons: Color Electric Weak
Quarks Leptons (charged) (neutrinos) They can exist as free particles. ☐ ☐ ☐ Q: Why different lifetimes?
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Particle dynamics (pictorially)
Feynman Rules !!! 1948: introduced pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions governing the behavior of subatomic particles Can be used to easily calculate “probability amplitudes” Other option: cumbersome mathematical derivations Richard P. Feynman
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Particle dynamics (pictorially)
Feynman diagrams deciphered
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Particle dynamics (pictorially)
Feynman diagrams deciphered Beware of the time direction! (You’ll see it used in either way.) If t was on y-axis, this would be a different process.
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Particle dynamics (pictorially)
Example An electron and a positron annihilate, producing a virtual photon (represented by the blue wavy line) that becomes a quark-antiquark pair. Then one radiates a gluon (represented by the green spiral).
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Particle dynamics (pictorially)
Example Note, at every vertex: Q conservation L conservation Le conservation B conservation An electron and a positron annihilate, producing a virtual photon (represented by the blue wavy line) that becomes a quark-antiquark pair. Then one radiates a gluon (represented by the green spiral).
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Quantum electrodynamics (QED)
Quantum electrodynamics, or QED, is the theory of the interactions between light and matter. As you already know, electromagnetism is the dominant physical force in your life. All of your daily interactions –besides your attraction to the Earth– are electromagnetic in nature. As a theory of electromagnetism, QED is primarily interested in the behavior and interactions of charged particles with each other and with light. As a quantum theory, QED works in the submicroscopic world, where particles follow all possible paths and can blink in and out of existence (more later).
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Quantum electrodynamics (QED)
In classical E&M, light is a wave, and matter is made up of charged particles. Charge is always conserved; particles are never created or destroyed. EM fields interact with charges according to the Lorentz force law: And accelerating charges radiate EM waves (Larmor power formula):
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Quantum electrodynamics (QED)
The vertices are interactions with the electromagnetic field. The straight lines are electrons and the wiggly ones are photons; between interactions (vertices), they propagate under the free Hamiltonian (free particles). The higher the number of vertices, the less likely for the interaction to happen.
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Quantum electrodynamics (QED)
Each vertex contributes a coupling constant a, where a is a small dimensionless number: Hence, higher-order diagrams (diagrams with more vertices) get suppressed relative to diagrams with less vertices because a is so small. amplitude
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When QED is not adequate
When we go to higher- energy e-p collisions, experiment shows that new particles start to form. This is so-called inelastic scattering, in which two colliding particles can form (hundreds of) new hadrons. QED cannot explain phenomena like inelastic scattering; we need an additional theory of subnuclear interactions.
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Quantum chromodynamics (QCD)
QCD can explain many phenomena that QED fails to explain. The binding of nucleons in atoms and the phenomenon of inelastic scattering are both explained by a single field theory of quarks and gluons: quantum chromodynamics. Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) describes the interactions between quarks (the particles that carry “color” charge) via the exchange of massless gluons. Note: The quark-gluon interactions are also responsible for the binding of quarks into the bound states that make up the hadron zoo (r’s, h’s, L, X, S’s, …). Problem: QCD is conceptually similar to QED, but its calculations are even more complicated. We’ll discuss why…
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Quantum chromodynamics (QCD)
Quarks and bound states: Since the quarks are spin-½ particles, they are fermions, and must obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle (PEP). PEP: fermions in a bound state (e.g., the quarks inside a hadron) cannot share the same quantum numbers. So how can we squeeze three quarks into a baryon? Answer: Quarks have an additional “charge,” called color, removing the quantum number degeneracy. Proposal: quark color comes in three types: red, green, and blue; and all free, observed particles are colorless. Red, blue, and green combine to give white (color- neutral). What do the anticolors look like?
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Quantum chromodynamics (QCD)
Quarks and bound states: Since the quarks are spin-½ particles, they are fermions, and must obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle (PEP). PEP: fermions in a bound state (e.g., the quarks inside a hadron) cannot share the same quantum numbers. So how can we squeeze three quarks into a baryon? Answer: Quarks have an additional “charge,” called color, removing the quantum number degeneracy. Proposal: quark color comes in three types: red, green, and blue; and all free, observed particles are colorless. Red, blue, and green combine to give white (color- neutral). What do the anticolors look like? Red plus antired gives white, but combining red with blue and green gives white. Hence, antired is blue+green, and similarly, antiblue is red+green, and antigreen is red+blue.
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Quantum chromodynamics (QCD)
Gluons have both color and anti-color, 9 varieties but 1 combination is white which is not allowed which leaves 8 types of gluon. H. Fearn CSUF Physics
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Quantum chromodynamics (QCD)
Quarks are electrically charged, so they also interact electromagnetically, exchanging photons. The strong interaction is gluon-mediated, but happily, the Feynman diagram for the quark-gluon vertex looks just like the primitive QED vertex.
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QED vs QCD QCD is much harder to handle than QED. What makes it so difficult? For starters, it’s not a perturbation theory. Perturbation theory: We saw that in QED, each vertex contributes a coupling constant a, where a is a small dimensionless number, much less than 1: Hence, higher-order diagrams (diagrams with more vertices) get suppressed relative to diagrams with less vertices because a is so small.
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QED vs QCD In QCD, the coupling between quarks and gluons, given by the number aS, is much larger than 1/137. In fact, at low energies, aS1, making higher-order diagrams just as important as those with fewer vertices! We can’t truncate the sum over diagrams; so calculations quickly become complex!
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Another complication: gluon color
Typically, quark color changes at a quark-gluon vertex. In order to allow this, the gluons have to carry off “excess” color. Color is conserved at the vertex (like electric charge is conserved in QED). So the gluons themselves are not color-neutral. That’s why we don’t usually observe them outside the nucleus (where only colorless particles exist). Hence, the strong force is short-range. Color, like electric charge, must be conserved at every vertex. This means that the gluons cannot be color-neutral, but in fact carry some color charge. It turns out that there are 8 distinct color combinations!
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Gluon confinement Confinement is the formal name for what we just discussed. The long-range interactions between gluons are theoretically unmanageable. The math is very complicated and riddled throughout with infinities. If we assume the massless gluons have infinite range, we find that an infinite amount of energy would be associated with these self-interacting long-range fields. Solution: Assume that any physical particle must be colorless there can be no long-range gluons.
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Quark confinement Confinement also applies to quarks; all bound states of quarks must have a color combination such that they are white, or colorless. Protons, neutrons, and other baryons are supposedly bound states of three quarks of different color. The mesons are composed of a quark-antiquark pair; these should have opposite colors (e.g., red and anti-red). As a consequence of confinement, one cannot remove just one quark from a proton, as that would create two “color- full” systems. We would need an infinite amount of energy to effect such a separation! Hence, the quarks are confined to a small region (<1 fm) near one another.
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Understanding confinement
The mathematics of confinement are complex, but we can understand them in terms of a very simple picture. Recall, the Coulomb field between an e+e- pair looks like V(r)~1/r. As we pull the pair apart, the attraction weakens. Imagine the color field between a quark- antiquark pair like Hooke’s Law: V(r)~r. As we pull the pair apart, the attraction between them increases. So, separating two quarks by a large r puts a huge amount of energy into the color field (V(r)). Dipole field for the Coulomb force between opposite electrical charges. Dipole field between opposite-color quarks.
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Understanding confinement
How do we understand this picture? When a quark and antiquark separate, their color interaction strengthens (more gluons appear in the color field). Through the interaction of the gluons with each other, the color lines of force are squeezed into a tube-like region. Contrast this with the Coulomb field. Nothing prevents the lines of force from spreading out; there is no self-coupling of the photons to contain them. If the color tube has constant energy density per unit length k, the potential energy between the quark and antiquark will increase with separation; V(r)~kr, as required by confinement. Dipole field for the Coulomb force between opposite electrical charges. Dipole field between opposite-color quarks.
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Color lines and hadron production
Why you can’t get free quarks: Suppose we have a meson and we try to pull it apart. The potential energy in the quark-antiquark color field starts to increase. Eventually, the energy in the gluon field gets big enough that the gluons can pair-produce another quark-antiquark pair. The quarks from this pair “pair up” with the original quarks to form mesons, and thus our four quarks remain confined in colorless states. Experimentally, we see two particles!
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Hadronic jets The process just described is observed experimentally in the form of hadron jets. Eg., in a collider experiment, two particles annihilate and form a quark- antiquark pair. As the quarks move apart, the color lines of force are stretched until the potential energy can create another quark- antiquark pair. This process continues until the quarks’ kinetic energies have totally degraded into clusters of quarks and gluons with zero net color. The experimentalist then detects several “jets” of hadrons, but never sees free quarks or gluons. Jet formationL TASSO detector at PETRA
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Asymptotic freedom As mentioned earlier, perturbation theory can’t be applied to QCD because the strong coupling constant aS is, in a word, strong! Because aS is of the order of unity, we can’t ignore the many-vertex Feynman diagrams as we do in QED. However, there is good news: the coupling “constant” is actually not a constant at all, but depends on the energy of the interaction. As the energy increases, in fact, the coupling constant becomes smaller. In fact, at high enough energies aS gets so small that QCD becomes a perturbative theory!
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Asymptotic freedom Asymptotic freedom: as the energy of interactions goes up, QCD asymptotically approaches a theory in which quarks act like free particles. Qualitatively, this makes sense; as we probe inside hadrons, we see less and less of the surrounding gluon field, and more of the point-like quarks themselves. D. Gross, H. Politzer, F. Wilczek (1970’s): asymptotic freedom suggests that QCD can be a valid theory of the strong force. Nobel Prize (2004): “for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.” Looking at quarks with a very high energy probe. PhysicsAndMore
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Back to QED: Polarization of the vacuum
The vacuum around a moving electron can fill up with virtual e+e- pairs. This is a purely quantum effect, and is allowed by Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Because opposite charges attract, the virtual positrons in the e+e- loops will move closer to the electron. Therefore, the vacuum around the electron becomes polarized (a net electric dipole develops), just like a dielectric inside a capacitor can become polarized.
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QED: Charge screening Now, suppose we want to measure the charge of the electron by observing the Coulomb force experienced by a test charge. Far away from the electron, its charge is screened by a cloud of virtual positrons, so the effective (observed) charge is smaller than its bare charge. As we move closer in, fewer positrons are blocking our line of sight to the electron. Hence, with decreasing distance (i.e., increasing energy), the effective charge of the electron appears to increase, since fewer positrons are screening it. Can think of this as a increasing with energy!
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QCD: Color antiscreening
In QCD, the additional gluon loop diagrams reverse the result of QED: a red charge is preferentially surrounded by other red charges (see right). By moving the test probe closer to the original quark, the probe penetrates a sphere of mostly red charge, and the measured red charge decreases. This phenomenon is called “antiscreening”. Can think of this as aS decreasing with energy!
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Running constants As we probe an electron at increasingly higher energies, its effective charge appears to increase. This can be rephrased in the following way: as interactions increase in energy, the QED coupling strength a between charges and photons also increases. This should not really shock you; after all, the coupling strength of E&M depends directly on the electron charge. Since a is not a constant, but a (slowly-varying) function of energy, it is called a running coupling constant. In QCD, the net effect is that the quark color charge and aS decrease as the interaction energy goes up.
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Underlying source: self-interactions of mediators
Gluon self-interaction! W and Z (weak force mediators) also self-interact. Similar behavior! The weak coupling constant also decreases as the energy scale goes up (although the strength of the weak interaction actually increases as we approach the masses of the W and Z, due to their mass).
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Weak interactions The equivalent quantity in weak interactions, aW, is actually larger than the electromagnetic a: aW=1/32 (!?) Why “weak” then??
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Weak interactions The equivalent quantity in weak interactions, aW, is actually larger than the electromagnetic a: aW=1/32 (!?) Why “weak” then?? Because of the large mass of the W/Z mediators (> 80 GeV). Note: At typical lab energies, we combine the effects of creating the W/Z mass into an effective coupling, which is indeed weak.
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Weak interaction NOTE: At low energies, the effective weak coupling strength is 1000 times smaller than the E&M force. As interaction energies start to approach the mass- energy of the W and Z particles (~100 GeV), the effective coupling rapidly approaches the intrinsic strength of the weak interaction aW. At these energies, the weak interaction actually dominates E&M. Beyond that, the effective weak coupling starts to decrease.
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Force unification At laboratory energies near MW100 GeV, the measured values of 1/a are rather different: 137, 29, 10. However, their energy dependences suggest that they approach (sort of!) a common value near 1016 GeV. This is an insanely high energy! The Standard Model provides no explanation for what may happen beyond this unification scale, nor why the forces have such different strengths at low energies.
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Let’s doodle! time
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Let’s doodle! ✔ time
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Let’s doodle! time
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Let’s doodle! ✗ time
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Let’s doodle! time
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Let’s doodle! ✔ time
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Let’s doodle! time
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Let’s doodle! ✗ time
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Let’s doodle! time
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Let’s doodle! ✔ time
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Let’s doodle! time
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Let’s doodle! ✗ time
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Let’s doodle! time
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Quantum chromodynamics (QCD)
Glueballs! Hypothetical composite particles, consisting solely of gluons, no quarks. Such a state is possible because gluons carry color charge and experience (strong) self-interaction. H. Fearn CSUF Physics
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Particle/Field formulation
In particle physics, we define fields like j(x,t) at every point in spacetime. These fields don’t just sit there; they fluctuate harmonically about some minimum energy state. The oscillations (Fourier Modes) combine to form wavepackets. The wavepackets move around in the field and interact with each other. We interpret them as elementary particles. Terminology: the wavepackets are called the quanta of the field j(x,t).
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Particle/Field formulation
How do we describe interactions and fields mathematically? Classically, Lagrangian L = kinetic energy – potential energy Particle physics: Same concept, plus use Dirac equation to describe free spin-1/2 particle: field
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Lagrangian mechanics Developed by Euler, Lagrange, and others during the mid-1700’s. This is an energy-based theory that is equivalent to Newtonian mechanics (a force-based theory, if you like). Lagrangian: Equation which allows us to infer the dynamics of a system.
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Standard Model Lagrangian
from previous slide, but with m=0 (massless fermions) H.-C. Schultz-Coulon
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Standard Model Lagrangian
from previous slide, but with m=0 (massless fermions) electromagnetic and weak interactions strong interaction H.-C. Schultz-Coulon gluons combinations give W, Z, g…
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Standard Model Lagrangian
Encompasses all theory: From the Lagrangian to cross section predictions H.-C. Schultz-Coulon
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Standard Model Lagrangian
Encompasses all theory: From the Lagrangian to cross section predictions H.-C. Schultz-Coulon
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Let’s go back a step…
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Integral over “all possible paths”
Where does the integral notion come from? QM picture of free particle motion: There is some amplitude for a free electron to travel along any path from the source to the some point p. – not just the straight, classical trajectory! Note that when we use the word “path”, we not only mean a path x(y) in space, but also the time at which it passes each point in space. In 3-D, a path (sometimes called a worldline) is defined by three functions x(t), y(t), and z(t). An electron has an amplitude to take a given path x(t), y(t), z(t). The total amplitude for the electron to arrive at some final point is the sum of the amplitudes of all possible paths. Since there are an infinite number of paths, the sum turns into an integral (a path integral).
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The quantum mechanical amplitude
Feynman: Each path has a corresponding probability amplitude. The amplitude y for a system to travel along a given path x(t) is: where the object S[x(t)] is called the action corresponding to x(t). The total amplitude is the sum of contributions from each path:
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The quantum mechanical amplitude
1) What is that thing eiS[x(t)]/ħ (called the phase of y)? 2) What is the action S[x(t)]?
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Understanding the phase
You may not have seen numbers like eiq, so let’s review. Basically, eiq is just a fancy way of writing sinusoidal functions; from Euler’s famous formula: Note: those of you familiar with complex numbers (of the form z=x+iy) know that eiq is the phase of the so- called polar form of z, in which z=reiq, with:
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Comments on the amplitude
Now we can understand the probability amplitude y[x(t)] eiS[x(t)]/ħ a little better: The amplitude is a sinusoidal function –a wave– that oscillates along the worldline x(t). The frequency of oscillation is determined by the how rapidly the action S changes along the path. The probability that a particle will take a given path (up to some overall multiplication constant) is: This is the same for every worldline. According to Feynman, the particle is equally likely to take any path through space and time!
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Standard Model Lagrangian
Encompasses all theory: From the Lagrangian to cross section predictions H.-C. Schultz-Coulon
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Symmetries | Invariance
In physics, exhibition of symmetry under some operation implies some conservation law
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Symmetries | Invariance
There are carefully chosen sets of transformations for Y which give rise to the observable gauge fields: That’s how we get electric, color, weak charge conservation !!!
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QED from local gauge invariance
Apply local gauge symmetry to Dirac equation: Consider very small changes in field: The effect on the Lagrangian is: If Lagrangian is invariant then dL=0 This type of transformation leaves quantum mechanical amplitudes invariant.
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QED from local gauge invariance
Apply local gauge symmetry to Dirac equation: Consider very small changes in field: The effect on the Lagrangian is: If Lagrangian is invariant then dL=0
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QED from local gauge invariance
To satisfy dL=0, we “engineer” a mathematical “trick”: In that case, L is redefined: The new Lagrangian is invariant under local gauge transformations. 1) Introduce gauge field Aµ to interact with fermion, and Aµ transform as: Aµ+dAµ= Aµ+ 1/e ∂µθ(x,t) 2) In resulting Lagrangian, Replace ∂µ→Dµ= ∂µ+ ieAµ
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Not the whole story! Need to add kinetic term for field (field strength): !
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! QED Lagrangian Need to add kinetic term for field (field strength):
Note: No mass term for Aµ allowed; otherwise L is not invariant. gauge field is massless!
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! QED Lagrangian Need to add kinetic term for field (field strength):
We have mathematically engineered a quantum field which couples to the fermions, obeys Maxwell’s equations, and is massless! Note: No mass term for Aµ allowed; otherwise L is not invariant. gauge field is massless!
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! QED Lagrangian Need to add kinetic term for field (field strength):
We have mathematically engineered a quantum field which couples to the fermions, obeys Maxwell’s equations, and is massless! PHOTON Note: No mass term for Aµ allowed; otherwise L is not invariant. gauge field is massless!
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QCD and Weak Lagrangians
Follow similar reasoning, but allow for self-interaction of gauge bosons (jargon: QCD and weak interactions based on non-abelian theories) In non-abelian theories gauge invariance is achieved by adding n2-1 massless gauge bosons for SU(n) (SU(n): gauge group) SU(2) –3 massless gauge bosons (W1, W2, W3) for weak force SU(3) –8 massless gluons for QCD
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QCD and Weak Lagrangians
Follow similar reasoning, but allow for self-interaction of gauge bosons (jargon: QCD and weak interactions based on non-abelian theories) In non-abelian theories gauge invariance is achieved by adding n2-1 massless gauge bosons for SU(n) (SU(n): gauge group) SU(2) –3 massless gauge bosons (W1, W2, W3) for weak force SU(3) –8 massless gluons for QCD
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Higgs Mechanism A theoretically proposed mechanism which gives rise to elementary particle masses: W, Z, H bosons and standard model fermions
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Higgs Mechanism massless case, from previous slide
H.-C. Schultz-Coulon
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Higgs Mechanism massless case, from previous slide
H.-C. Schultz-Coulon
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Higgs Mechanism s massless case, from previous slide s
H.-C. Schultz-Coulon
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V(j) and spontaneous symmetry breaking
When we speak of symmetry in the Standard Model, we usually mean gauge symmetry. This has to do with the form of the Lagrangian in terms of a given field j. For simplicity, let’s consider a simple (and suggestive!) example in which the Lagrangian has reflection symmetry about the j=0 axis: Lagrangian term for Higgs field, over all spacetime: “potential energy” U(j) = -1/2 m2j2 + 2/4 j (recall: L = T-U)
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V(j) and spontaneous symmetry breaking
To get a correct interpretation of the Lagrangian, and to be able to use perturbative (Feynman) calculations, we need to find one of its minima (a ground state) and look at small fluctuations of j about that minimum. Clearly, in this case the Lagranigan has two minima. For this Lagrangian, the Feynman calculus must be formulated as small fluctuations of the field about one of the two minima. Switching to either one of the two minima in U effectively introduces a new massive particle! We must pick one of these minimum points and consider oscillations of the field about that minimum. In other words, the Feynman calculus must be formulated in terms of deviations from one or the other of these ground states.
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V(j) and spontaneous symmetry breaking
The phenomenon we have just considered is called spontaneous symmetry breaking. Why symmetry breaking? Well, actually, we haven’t broken anything. It’s just that our choice of a ground state “hides” or “breaks” the obvious reflection symmetry of the original Lagrangian. What about the spontaneous part? If you think about it, the choice of a ground state is completely arbitrary in this system. There is no external agency that favors one over the other, or even forces the choice to begin with.
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Higgs Mechanism massless case, from previous slide
When j “picks a ground state” (i.e. when the gauge symmetry of a Lagrangian is spontaneously broken), all fermion fields and weak bosons become massive! Physically, the expected massless bosons acquire mass by interacting with a newly apparent massive scalar field called the Higgs field. Hence, this process is called the Higgs mechanism. H.-C. Schultz-Coulon
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Electroweak unification
In the end, the SU(2)U(1)part of the Standard Model is called the electroweak theory, because electromagnetism and the weak force start out mixed together in this overall gauge symmetry. The four massless gauge bosons predicted by SU(2) U(1) are not apparent at everyday energies. Analogous to our simple example, the ground state of the SU(2)U(1) theory (where we live) is one in which this gauge symmetry is hidden. Result: the four massless gauge bosons appear to us as the massive W+, W-, Z, and the massless photon. The explicit U(1) symmetry of QED is preserved.
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Face-to-face with the Higgs
Spin-0 particle which gives other particles and massive force mediators their mass. The Higgs Mechanism source: CERN To understand the Higgs mechanism, imagine that a room full of physicists chattering quietly is like space filled with the Higgs field ...
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Face-to-face with the Higgs
Spin-0 particle which gives other particles and massive force mediators their mass. The Higgs Mechanism source: CERN ... a well-known scientist walks in, creating a disturbance as he moves across the room and attracting a cluster of admirers with each step ...
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Face-to-face with the Higgs
Spin-0 particle which gives other particles and massive force mediators their mass. The Higgs Mechanism source: CERN ... this increases his resistance to movement, in other words, he acquires mass, just like a particle moving through the Higgs field...
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Face-to-face with the Higgs
Spin-0 particle which gives other particles and massive force mediators their mass. The Higgs Mechanism source: CERN ... if a rumor crosses the room, ...
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Face-to-face with the Higgs
Spin-0 particle which gives other particles and massive force mediators their mass. The Higgs Mechanism source: CERN ... it creates the same kind of clustering, but this time among the scientists themselves. In this analogy, these clusters are the Higgs particles.
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SM: How simple, really? SM does not predict:
These values must be added by hand (experimental measurements)
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SM predicts relationships
All observables can be predicted in terms of 26 free parameters (including neutrino masses, mixing parameters). If we have > 26 measurements of these observables, we overconstrain the SM. Overconstrain ⇒ we don’t have any more ad hoc inputs AND we can test the consistency of the model. In practice: Pick well measured set of observables. Calculate other observables in terms of these well known quantities. Test predictions; measure observable, compare to theory.
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Where can the SM be tested?
Particle physics experiments designed to test specific aspects of SM Major historical experiments: @LEP (ALEPH,DELPHI,L3,OPAL) Electroweak, qcd @Fermilab (CDF, D0) Electroweak, qcd, quark mixing Major running experiments: CMS,
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Higgs production at the LHC
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Higgs production at the LHC
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Higgs decay modes
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Higgs searches -- examples
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Summary SM unites electromagnetic, weak, strong forces
SM predicts cross-sections, couplings SM incomplete – 26 free parameters – Relations between some free parameters are predicted; allow for experimental tests.
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