An accessible and carefully structured introduction to Particle Physics, including important coverage of the Higgs Boson and recent progress in neutrino physics. Fourth edition of this successful title in the Manchester Physics series Includes information on recent key discoveries including: An account of the discovery of exotic hadrons, byond the simple quark model; Expanded treatments of neutrino physics and CP violation in B-decays; An updated account of ‘physics beyond the standard model’, including the interaction of particle physics with cosmology Additional problems in all chapters, with solutions to selected problems available on the book’s website Advanced material appears in optional starred sections

Table of Contents:
Editors’ preface to the Manchester Physics Series xiii Authors’ preface xv Suggested Short Course xvii Notes xix Physical Constants, Conversion Factors and Natural Units xxi 1 Some basic concepts 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Antiparticles 3 1.3 Interactions and Feynman diagrams 9 1.4 Particle exchange 15 1.5 Units and dimensions 19 Problems 1 22 2 Leptons and the weak interaction 24 2.1 Lepton multiplets and lepton numbers 24 2.2 Leptonic weak interactions 31 2.3 Neutrino masses and neutrino mixing 35 Problems 2 50 3 Quarks and hadrons 52 3.1 Quarks 53 3.2 General properties of hadrons 55 3.3 Pions and nucleons 58 3.4 Strange particles, charm and bottom 61 3.5 Short-lived hadrons 66 3.6 Allowed and exotic quantum numbers 72 Problems 3 75 4 Experimental methods 77 4.1 Overview 77 4.2 Accelerators and beams 79 4.3 Particle interactions with matter 86 4.4 Particle detectors 95 4.5 Detector systems and accelerator experiments 112 4.6 Non-accelerator experiments 121 Problems 4 123 5 Space–time symmetries 126 5.1 Translational invariance 127 5.2 Rotational invariance 129 5.3 Parity 135 5.4 Charge conjugation 142 5.5 Positronium 145 5.6 Time reversal 149 Problems 5 153 6 The quark model 155 6.1 Isospin symmetry 156 6.2 The lightest hadrons 162 6.3 The L = 0 heavy quark states 174 6.4 Colour 177 6.5 Charmonium and bottomonium 184 Problems 6 191 7 QCD, jets and gluons 193 7.1 Quantum chromodynamics 193 7.2 Electron–positron annihilation 210 Problems 7 215 8 Quarks and partons 217 8.1 Elastic electron scattering: the size of the proton 217 8.2 Inelastic electron and muon scattering 222 8.3 Inelastic neutrino scattering 231 8.4 Other processes 236 8.5 Current and constituent quarks 243 Problems 8 246 9 Weak interactions: quarks and leptons 248 9.1 Charged current reactions 250 9.2 The third generation 262 Problems 9 274 10 Weak interactions: electroweak unification 276 10.1 Neutral currents and the unified theory 277 10.2 Gauge invariance and the Higgs boson 287 Problems 10 305 11 Discrete symmetries: C, P, CP and CPT 308 11.1 P violation, C violation and CP conservation 308 11.2 CP violation and particle–antiparticle mixing 316 11.3 CP violation in the standard model 340 Problems 11 343 12 Beyond the standard model 346 12.1 Grand unification 347 12.2 Supersymmetry 354 12.3 Strings and things 358 12.4 Particle physics and cosmology 360 12.5 Dirac or Majorana neutrinos? 373 Problems 12 381 A Relativistic kinematics 383 A.1 The Lorentz transformation for energy and momentum 383 A.2 The invariant mass 385 A.2.1 Beam energies and thresholds 385 A.2.2 Masses of unstable particles 387 A.3 Transformation of the scattering angle 388 Problems A 390 B Amplitudes and cross-sections 392 B.1 Rates and cross-sections 392 B.2 The total cross-section 394 B.3 Differential cross-sections 395 B.4 The scattering amplitude 397 B.5 The Breit–Wigner formula 400 B.5.1 Decay distributions 401 B.5.2 Resonant cross-sections 404 Problems B 406 C The isospin formalism 408 C.1 Isospin operators 409 C.2 Isospin states 411 C.3 Isospin multiplets 411 C.3.1 Hadron states 412 C.4 Branching ratios 414 C.5 Spin states 416 Problems C 416 D Gauge theories 418 D.1 Electromagnetic interactions 419 D.2 Gauge transformations 420 D.3 Gauge invariance and the photon mass 421 D.4 The gauge principle 423 D.5 The Higgs mechanism 425 D.5.1 Charge and current densities 425 D.5.2 Spin-0 bosons 427 D.5.3 Spontaneous symmetry breaking 428 D.6 Quantum chromodynamics 429 D.7 Electroweak interactions 434 D.7.1 Weak isospin 434 D.7.2 Gauge invariance and charged currents 436 D.7.3 The unification condition 437 D.7.4 Spin structure and parity violation 440 Problems D 441 E Answers to selected questions 443 References 448 Index 451