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Tools To Understand QFT

Particle physics studies the fundamental building blocks of matter and their interactions. These building blocks include quarks, which combine to form protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons in turn form the nucleus of atoms. Particle physicists use powerful accelerators to collide particles together at very high energies, allowing them to study these fundamental particles and investigate phenomena that cannot be explained by current theories like the Standard Model. The goal is to discover new fundamental particles and interactions, and develop more complete theories of particle physics and the universe.

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58 views8 pages

Tools To Understand QFT

Particle physics studies the fundamental building blocks of matter and their interactions. These building blocks include quarks, which combine to form protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons in turn form the nucleus of atoms. Particle physicists use powerful accelerators to collide particles together at very high energies, allowing them to study these fundamental particles and investigate phenomena that cannot be explained by current theories like the Standard Model. The goal is to discover new fundamental particles and interactions, and develop more complete theories of particle physics and the universe.

Uploaded by

kalodijf
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Why study particle physics?

- A brief
introduction

This section is only intended as a brief introduction to a number of the key aspects of
particle physics, it is therefore a somewhat simplified and incomplete description. For
those interested there seems to be extensive material on the subject of particle physics
on the web; some useful links are given throughout this site. For relevant texts see the
'references' section'.

Particle Physics is an important branch of Physics in that it enables a picture to be


built up of what matter is and how it works. It allows us to address questions such as
'What is the world made of?' and 'What holds the world together?' Click here to find
out more

The world is made up of fundamental building blocks. Fundamental is used in the


sense that these so-called building blocks are simple and structureless and cannot be
made up of anything smaller.

Atoms
Atoms consist of a nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons. Atoms can be arranged
in the Periodic Table. Atomic nuclei have a charge +Ze, where e is the magnitude of
the charge on an electron and Z is the atomic number. Z determines the number of
atomic electrons and hence the ordered position of that species of atom in the periodic
table. Elements are arranged (within the periodic table) left to right and top to bottom
in order of increasing atomic number. This order generally coincides with increasing
atomic mass. The periodicity of the periodic table is explained beautifully by the
conservation rules of quantum mechanics. As it is possible to build a periodic table
this suggests that atoms must be made of simpler building blocks. Atoms, therefore
are not the most fundamental particles.

Protons and Neutrons

The nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons. The proton is a positively charged
particle having a mass of 1.673x10-27kg whereas the neutron has no charge and a
slightly(!) heavier mass of 1.675x10-27kg. The proton and neutron both have a radius
of 10-15m. The proton and neutron are held together by the strong nuclear force.

Nuclear physics is another branch of physics in which the physics of the atomic
nucleus is studied. Nuclear physicists are concerned with understanding the properties
of nuclei in terms of the behaviour of their constituents. Click here to find out more

Quarks
Protons and neutrons are not fundamental as they consist of sets of point-like particles
called quarks held together by the exchange of messenger particles called gluons.
Current understanding suggests that quarks and gluons have no sub-structure.
Scientists believe that quarks, electrons and a few more particles (see the standard
model, below) are fundamental. Elementary Particle Physics is concerned with
studying these fundamental particles.

Figure 1 shows a schematic representation of atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons and


quarks.
Figure 1: Schematic representation of quarks, protons, neutrons and electrons

Particle physicists look for new particles and on finding them categorise them in order
to try and find patterns of how fundamental building blocks of the universe interact.
The Standard Model

The Standard Model is the name given to the model which particle physicists have at
present to describe the 200 or so elementary particles and their interactions. This
model is very successful and can explain all the particles using 6 quarks, 6 leptons and
force carrying particles. There are two elements to the model:

(1) The Building Blocks

These are the six quarks and six leptons (see types of particle). These can be arranged
into three families (known as generations!):

1st Family (Generation) 2nd Family (Generation) 3rd Family (Generation)


up quark (u) charm quark (c) top quark (t)
down quark (d) strange quark (s) bottom quark (b)
electron muon tau
electron neutrino muon neutrino tau neutrino

(2) The Interactions


There are 4 interactions, each having associated with it one or more force carrying
particles, these are what hold the 'building blocks' together:

Gravitational Weak Electromagnetic Strong


Exchanged particles graviton???* W+, W-, Z0 photon gluon
Mass heavy zero zero

* The gravitational interaction has no important effects in particle physics and so is


only mentioned above for completeness. It is thought an exchange particle called the
'graviton' may exist but this has not been found yet!

Of these three interactions of interest (weak, electromagnetic and strong) the weak
and electromagnetic are manifestations of the same interaction, the electroweak
interaction. The electroweak interaction requires the masses of the weak and
electromagnetic exchange particles to be massless, this is clearly not the case. It is
thought the W and Z particles acquire their mass by interacting with a new type of
field, the Higgs field. The Higgs field predicts at least a pair of Higgs particles, these
are the particles which will be sought for in the Large Hadron Collider which is due to
open atCERN in 2005.

Although a good theory, the standard model is incomplete as there is experimental


evidence which the Standard model cannot explain.
Experiments in particle physics are carried out at giant particle accelerators and their
associated detection equipment. The accelerators are required to accelerate particles to
high energies for two reasons:

(1) In order to investigate particles of the size 10-18m, radiation is required with a
wavelength () comparable to that of the particle being studied. From de Broglie's
relation it can be seen that a tiny radiation wavelength demands a very high energy
(E):

E=hc/

where h is a constant, known as Planck's constant.

(2) Many of the fundamental constituents have large masses and require
correspondingly high energies for their creation and study. This can be seen from
Einstein's famous equation

E = mc2
Where E is the energy, m is the mass of the particle and c is the speed of light. It can
readily be seen that a large energy is required to create a particle of large mass.

For a more in depth discussion of many of the points discussed above, click here

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