Course Description
This lecture covers a selection of advanced topics in particle physics. In the first part of the course, the foundations of the Standard Model are developed. Starting from basic principles of quantum field theory and the requirement of gauge invariance, the SU(2) × U(1) Yang–Mills structure of the electroweak sector of the Standard Model is introduced. This framework initially leads to (massless) fermions and (massless) gauge bosons, which—after appropriate mixing and assignment of U(1) hypercharges—are identified with the photon 𝛾, the W± bosons, and the Z0 boson. Special emphasis is placed on understanding the electroweak couplings of the Z boson to left- and right-handed fermions, from which the branching ratios of Z-bosons decaying into fermions can be estimated at tree levels. The Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism is then discussed, explaining how gauge bosons acquire mass and how fermions become massive through their coupling to the Higgs field. The course also presents the discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC, with particular emphasis on the ATLAS experiment.
The second part of the course focuses on the interactions of particles with matter, which form the basis for particle detection and precise measurement using a variety of experimental techniques.
