Introduction to Particle Physics

Lecture notes by Prof. Darin Acosta, University of Florida

Module 0: Particle Physics Overview

• Particle Physics Introduction

Module 1: Modern Physics Review

• Review: time dilation, length contraction, and Lorentz Transformations
• Review: Addition of velocities, Doppler effect, and Lorentz Invariance
• Review: Energy and momentum, invariant mass, and reaction energy
• 4-vectors, Lorentz Transformations, and relativistic kinematics

• Matter Waves and the Uncertainty Principle
• Quantum Wave Mechanics
• Quarkonia states

Module 2: Scattering

• Decays and Scattering

Module 3: Matter Interactions

• Matter Interactions
• Radioactivity and Radiation

Module 4: Accelerators and Detectors

• Accelerator Operation
• Accelerators
• Detectors
• Experiments

Module 5: Intro to the Standard Model

• Leptons and Neutrinos
• Relativistic quantum mechanics 
• Interactions and Feynman diagrams

Module 6: Symmetries and Conservation Laws

• Symmetries and conservation laws
• Example reactions and conservation laws violated or not

Module 7: Quark-Parton Model

• Quark Model
• Annotated particle multiplets from lecture: QuarkModel-class

Module 8: Hadron Structure

• Hadron Structure
• Hadron Structure slides

Module 9: Quantum Chromodynamics

• QCD

Module 10: Electroweak Unification

• Electroweak interactions
• Higgs mechanism
• Neutrino Mixing

Video lectures by Prof. Acosta:

• Charged-current and neutral current weak Interactions and quark mixing (28:24)
• Electroweak unification (25:47)
• The Higgs mechanism and Higgs boson properties (29:17)

Module 11: Beyond the Standard Model

• BSM

Video lectures by Prof. Acosta

• Introduction to Beyond the Standard Model (15:35)
  • Description of the some of the open questions in the Standard Model and some hints of new physics
• Supersymmetry (24:22)
  • What is Supersymmetry, why is it an attractive extension of the Standard Model of particle physics, and what are some of the signatures in a collider experiment?
• Further Beyond the Standard Model (12:55)
  • New gauge bosons and excited fermion states are discussed as two other possibilities of physics beyond the standard model