ELEMENTARY PARTICLE PHYSICS

PROGRAMME


Part I   Basic properties of elementary particles and experimental methods for their investigation. (45 hours) 

1. Introduction to the structure of the matter. (1 hour)
    Hierarchy of the structures and the scales. Atoms, nucleus, leptons, nucleons, quarks. Fundamental interactions and their carriers. Intensity and radius of action.
2. Elementary particles kinematics. (6 hours)
    Lorentz transformation in the Minkowski space, relativistic invariants. Laboratory frame and centre of mass reference systems, transition between different frames of reference. Energy and momentum conservation law. Units of measurement for basic quantities in the elementary particle physics.
3. S-matrix in interaction representation. (3 hours)
    Schrodinger and Dirac representations. Definition of S-matrix and its physical meaning. Expansion in order of powers of the constant of interaction. Graphical representation - Feynman diagrams.
4. Phase volume, probability for decay, cross section of process. (2 hours)
    Phase volume, probability for decay, mean life time. Interaction cross section.
5. Symmetry and conservation laws. (6 hours)
    Symmetry in Quantum Physics. Energy, momentum and angular momentum conservation laws. Elements of group theory - representations, Lee algebras, Casimirs operators. Example - the SU(2) group, isospin. Continues and discrete space symmetries: Lorentz and Poincare groups, reflection of space and time, charge conjugation.
6. Basic characteristics of elementary particles. (3 hours)
    Spatial and internal quantum numbers: mass, spin, electrical charge, colour, flavour. Mean life time and width of unstable particles, rezonanses. Breit-Wigner distribution. Fundamental particles.
7. Experimental techniques of elementary particle physics. (4 hours)
    Sources of high energy particles. Cosmic rays. Accelerators: principles of action, basic characteristics. Cyclotron, Syncrocyclotron, Synchrotron, Proton Synchrotron. Colliders.
8. Processes of interaction of particles with matter and their usage for registration of high energy space particles. (5 hours)
    Registration of charged particles through ionization, Cerenkov radiation, transition radiation. Registration of gamma-quanta -physical processes for their registration, radiation length.
9. High energy particles detectors. Types and principles of action. (12 hours)
    Basic characteristics of detectors. Tracking detectors - multi wire proportional chambers, drift chambers, TPC, silicon detectors. Scintillation counters. Cerenkov counters (threshold, differential). Electromagnetic and hadron calorimeters - measurement of energy of the photons, electrons, positrons and hadrons. Measurement of momentum of the particles. Detector complexes .
10. Structure of hadrons. (3 hours)
    Lepton  - nuclon scattering. Elastic and deep inelastic scattering. Parton model, scaling.
 

Part II. Models of fundamental interactions and their experimental verification. (45 hours) 

1. Asimptotical behaviour of the amplitude of scattering at high energies.  (3 hours)
    Analytical properties of scattering amplitude, dispersion relations. Estimation of high energy behaviour of cross section and scattering amplitudes. Pomeranchuk theorem.
2. Gauge theory of interaction. (4 hours)
    Local gauge symmetry of electromagnetic interactions. Non-Abelian gauge transformations, Yang - Mills fields, gauge invariant Lagrangians.
3. Strong interactions and isotopical symmetry. (3 hours)
    Baryon charge, isotopical spin, strangeness, connection with electrical charge. G-parity, relations between amplitudes of transition.
4. SU(3) symmetry of strong interactions and quark model. (4 hours)
    SU(3) representations, hadron classification. Description of broken SU(3) symmetry and mass relations. GellMan - Nishijima formula. Quark model of baryons, quantum numbers of the quarks, colour.
5. Quantum Chromodynamics. (9 hours)
    Experimental indication for existence of colour - decay : Pi-zero -> 2 gamma or electron and  positron,  annihilation in hadrons, hadron jets. Gauge theory of the colour SU(3) invariance, interactions between quarks and gluons, asimptotical freedom. Confiment of quarks and gluons. Experimental indication for existence of gluons.
6. Weak interactions. (6 hours)
    Weak decays and reactions. Violation of CP-symmetry, decays of the neutral K-masons. V-A structure of the leptons and quark currents, Cabibbo current. Neutral currents, experimental observation. Neutrinos with nonzero mass, neutrino oscillations.
7. Unification of the electromagnetic and weak interactions. (9 hours)
    Phenomenological base. Charged currents, carriers of the weak interaction. General description of the Glashow - Weinberg - Salam model. Violation of the gauge symmetry. Higgs mechanism. W - and Z - bosons, Weinberg angle, Higgs boson. Masses of the vector bosons,leptons and quarks. Kobayashi - Maskawa matrix.
8. Grand Unification theories of the fundamental interactions. (3 hours)
    Standard model. "Running" constant of interaction, unification of weak, strong and electromagnetic interactions in SU(5) model. Proton decay. Supersymmetric theories.
9. Particle physics and cosmological models. (1 hour)
    Early history of the Universe. Connection between the elementary particle physics and the cosmology.
10. Experiments for verification of the standard model. (3 hours)
Electron-positron factories, B - and Z - factories; proton-proton and proton-anti-proton Colliders. LEP-system at CERN. Experiments at LEP. Experimental results for number of the generations, masses of the Z and W bosons, mass of the t - quark, running constant of the interaction.