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ITEP LECTURES ON PARTICLE PHYSICS AND FIELD THEORY
(In 2 Volumes)
by M A Shifman (Theoretical Physics Institute, University of Minnesota)
Table of Contents (38k)
Foreword (395k)
Chapter 1: Lectures on Heavy Quarks in Quantum Chromodynamics (4,768k)
Chapter 6: Instantons Versus Supersymmetry: Fifteen Years Later (7,584k)
M Shifman was born in 1949 in Latvia, then part of the Soviet Union. Shortly after, his family moved to Moscow. In 1966 he became a student of the Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology in Dolgoprudny. He did his Masters diploma work and then PhD (1976) at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP) in Moscow, where he stayed as a member of the Theory Department till 1989. He spent the 1989/90 academic year at Bern University, Switzerland, and then moved to his present position of Professor of Physics at the University of Minnesota. In 1997, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has had the honor of receiving the 1999 Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics (together with A Vainshtein and V Zakharov), “for fundamental contributions to the understanding of nonperturbative QCD, nonleptonic weak decays, and the analytic properties of supersymmetric gauge theories.” Prof. Shifman's scientific interests are focused on quantum chromodynamics and the gauge theories in general, including supersymmetry in the strong coupling regime. He is one of the recognized leaders in the theory of hadrons, and particularly in the heavy quark theory. Other significant contributions include the invisible axion and developments in the quasi-exactly solvable spectral problem.
For almost two decades Prof. Shifman, a clear and pedagogical expositor, has been giving review lectures on frontier topics in theoretical high energy physics. This two-volume book is a collection of some of the best of those lectures. The lectures written in the 1980's and early 1990's have been revised and updated specifically for this publication. The lectures in this book are intended for beginners — graduate students and young researchers — who are about to delve into the intricacies of the theory. They were used by the author in his course “Advanced Modern Field Theory and Its Applications”, given in the academic year 1994/95 at the University of Minnesota.
A wide range of key topics is covered. In Volume 1, the first two chapters are devoted to quantum chromodynamics as the theory of hadrons. The author gives an in-depth discussion of a variety of
powerful methods based on Wilson's operator product expansion. Chapter 3 (written together with V Novikov, A Vainshtein, and V Zakharov) is the most systematic and pedagogical presentation of instantons in the gauge theories one can find in the literature. Chapter 4 introduces supersymmetry. Chapter 5, concluding this volume, reviews the fascinating dynamics of supersymmetric gauge theories in the strong coupling regime. Chapter 6, which opens Volume 2, is a culmination of the supersymmetric theme. It gives a state-of-the-art description of the breakthrough developments in supersymmetric gauge theories. It has been written specifically for this book by A Vainshtein and the author. Chapter 7 is designed as a primer of two-dimensional conformal field theory, which constitutes the basis of modern string theory. Chapter 8, the last, presents remarkable new findings in quantum mechanics. Every chapter contains exercises and a list of recommended literature.
Prof. Shifman has been an active participant and significant contributor in the development of the ideas presented in this book. This accounts for the historical remarks and digressions interspersed in the book, enhancing its pedagogical role. The book will serve as a comprehensive reference and textbook for all graduate students and researchers interested in modern particle physics. It will also be a useful guide for lecturers.
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