W. N. Cottingham - An Introduction to the Standard Model of Particle Physics

The Standard Model of particle physics is the mathematical theory that describes the weak, electromagnetic and strong interactions between leptons and quarks, the basic particles of the Standard Model.

The new edition of this introductory graduate textbook provides a concise but accessible introduction to the Standard Model. It has been updated to account for the successes of the theory of strong interactions, and the observations on matterantimatter asymmetry. It has become clear that neutrinos are not mass-less, and this book gives a coherent presentation of the phenomena and the theory that describes them. It includes an account of progress in the theory of strong interactions and of advances in neutrino physics. The book clearly develops the theoretical concepts from the electromagnetic and weak interactions of leptons and quarks to the strong interactions of quarks.

This textbook provides an up-to-date introduction to the Standard Model for graduate students in particle physics. Each chapter ends with problems, and hints to selected problems are provided at the end of the book. The mathematical treatments are suitable for graduates in physics, and more sophisticated mathematical ideas are developed in the text and appendices.

Noel Cottingham and Derek Greenwood are theoreticians working in the H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory at the University of Bristol. They have published two undergraduate texts with Cambridge University Press, Electricity and Magnetism (1991) and An Introduction to Nuclear Physics , now in its second edition (2001).

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In the eight years since the first edition, the Standard Model has not been seriously discredited as a description of particle physics in the energy region (<2 TeV) so far explored. The principal discovery in particle physics since the first edition is that neutrinos carry mass. In this new edition we have added chapters that extend the formalism of the Standard Model to include neutrino fields with mass, and we consider also the possibility that neutrinos are Majorana particles rather than Dirac particles.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is now under construction at CERN. It is expected that, at the energies that will become available for experiments at the LHC (~20 TeV), the physics of the Higgs field will be elucidated, and we shall begin to see physics beyond the Standard Model. Data from the B factories will continue to accumulate and give greater understanding of CP violation. We are confident that interest in the Standard Model will be maintained for some time into the future.

Cambridge University Press have again been most helpful. We thank Miss V. K. Johnson for secretarial assistance. We are grateful to Professor Dr J. G. Krner for his corrections to the first edition, and to Professor C. Davies for her helpful correspondence.