D’Auria R., Trigiante M. From Special Relativity to Feynman Diagrams: A Course of Theoretical Particle Physics for Beginners

Springer: Milan, Heidelberg, Dordrecht, London, New York; (2012); pp. i-xvi, 1-573
This book has developed from the lecture notes of a course in Advanced Quantum Mechanics held by the authors at the Politecnico of Torino for students of ‘‘physical engineering’’, that is students who, even though oriented towards applied physics and technology, were interested in acquiring a fair knowledge of modern fundamental physics. Although originally conceived for students of engineering, we have eventually extended the target of this book to also include students of physics who may be interested in a comprehensive and concise treatment of the main subjects of their theoretical physics courses. What underlies our choice of topics is the purpose of giving a consistent presentation of the theoretical ideas which have been developed since the very beginning of the last century, namely special relativity and quantum mechanics, up to the first consistent and experimentally validated quantum field theory, namely quantum electrodynamics. This theory provides a successful description of the interaction between photons and electrons and dates back to the middle of the last centurySpecial Relativity. Relativistic Dynamics. The Equivalence Principle. The Poincaré Group. Maxwell Equations and Special Relativity. Quantization of the Electromagnetic Field. Group Representations and Lie Algebras. Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Formalism. Quantum Mechanics Formalism. Relativistic Wave Equations. Quantization of Boson and Fermion Fields. Fields in Interaction. (The Eotvös’ Experiment. The Newtonian Limit of the Geodesic Equation. The Twin Paradox. Jacobi Identity for Poisson Brackets. Induced Representations and Little Groups. SU(2) and SO(3). Gamma Matrix Identities).