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Books > Science & Mathematics > Physics > Particle & high-energy physics
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Conceptual Foundations Of Modern Particle Physics (Paperback)
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Conceptual Foundations Of Modern Particle Physics (Paperback)
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For scientific, technological and organizational reasons, the end
of World War II (in 1945) saw a rapid acceleration in the tempo of
discovery and understanding in nuclear physics, cosmic rays and
quantum field theory, which together triggered the birth of modern
particle physics. The first fifteen years (1945-60) following the
war's end - the "Startup Period" in modern particle physics
-witnessed a series of major experimental and theoretical
developments that began to define the conceptual contours
(non-Abelian internal symmetries, Yang-Mills fields,
renormalization group, chirality invariance, baryon-lepton symmetry
in weak interactions, spontaneous symmetry breaking) of the quantum
field theory of three of the basic interactions in nature
(electromagnetic, strong and weak). But it took another fifteen
years (1960-75) - the "Heroic Period" in modern particle physics -
to unravel the physical content and complete the mathematical
formulation of the standard gauge theory of the strong and
electroweak interactions among the three generations of quarks and
leptons. The impressive accomplishments during the "Heroic Period"
were followed by what is called the "period of consolidation and
speculation (1975-1990)", which includes the experimental
consolidation of the standard model (SM) through precision tests,
theoretical consolidation of SM through the search for more
rigorous mathematical solutions to the Yang-Mills-Higgs equations,
and speculative theoretical excursions "beyond SM".Within this
historical-conceptual framework, the author - himself a practicing
particle theorist for the past fifty years - attempts to trace the
highlights in the conceptual evolution of modern particle physics
from its early beginnings until the present time. Apart from the
first chapter - which sketches a broad overview of the entire field
- the remaining nine chapters of the book offer detailed
discussions of the major concepts and principles that prevailed and
were given wide currency during each of the fifteen-year periods
that comprise the history of modern particle physics. Those
concepts and principles that contributed only peripherally to the
standard model are given less coverage but an attempt is made to
inform the reader about such contributions (which may turn out to
be significant at a future time) and to suggest references that
supply more information. Chapters 2 and 3 of the book cover a range
of topics that received dedicated attention during the "Startup
Period" although some of the results were not incorporated into the
structure of the standard model. Chapters 4-6 constitute the core
of the book and try to recapture much of the conceptual excitement
of the "Heroic Period", when quantum flavordynamics (QFD) and
quantum chromodynamics (QCD) received their definitive formulation.
[It should be emphasized that, throughout the book, logical
coherence takes precedence over historical chronology (e.g. some of
the precision tests of QFD are discussed in Chapter 6)]. Chapter 7
provides a fairly complete discussion of the chiral gauge anomalies
in four dimensions with special application to the standard model
(although the larger unification models are also considered). The
remaining three chapters of the book (Chapters 7-10) cover concepts
and principles that originated primarily during the "Period of
Consolidation and Speculation" but, again, this is not a literal
statement. Chapters 8 and 9 report on two of the main directions
that were pursued to overcome acknowledged deficiencies of the
standard model: unification models in Chapter 8 and attempts to
account for the existence of precisely three generations of quarks
and leptons, primarily by means of preon models, in Chapter 9. The
most innovative of the final three chapters of the book is Chapter
10 on topological conservation laws. This last chapter tries to
explain the significance of topologically non-trivial solutions in
four-dimensional (space-time) particle physics (e.g. 't
Hooft-Polyakov monopoles, instantons, sphalerons, global SU(2)
anomaly, Wess-Zumino term, etc.) and to reflect on some of the
problems that have ensued (e.g. the "strong CP problem" in QCD)
from this effort. It turns out that the more felicitous topological
applications of field theory are found - as of now - in condensed
matter physics; these successful physical applications (to
polyacetylene, quantized magnetic flux in type-II low temperature
superconductivity, etc.) are discussed in Chapter 10, as a good
illustration of the conceptual unity of modern physics.
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