Physics

MARCO NARDECCHIA
MAURO VALLI

A - Knowledge and understanding
OF 1) Knowing the theoretical foundations and the phenomenological aspects of the Standard Model
OF 2) Knowing the theoretical and phenomenological aspects of the spontaneous breaking of the electroweak symmetry and the related precision tests.
OF 3) Knowing the main aspects of flavour physics in the hadronic sector and in the leptonic sector.
OF 4) Understanding the field theoretical methods used in the context of high-energy physics

B - Application skills
OF 5) Knowing how to identify the main aspects in the calculation of Standard Model predictions of physical observables. Knowing how to estimate the dependence of physical quantities on the fundamental parameters using dimensional analysis.
OF 6) Knowing how to identify the relevant symmetries in the various phenomenologcial applications and how to deduce their consequences.
OF 7) Being able to use field theoretical methods relevant to high-energy physics

C - Autonomy of judgment
OF 8) The student will have to learn how to evaluate the correctness of the logical reasoning used in the discussion of the various phenomenological applications and in the proofs of theorems.
OF 9) The regular assignment of exercises will encourage the habit of self-assessment.
OF 10) The extensive literature suggested will encourage individual initiative to deepen the study of some of the topics covered.

D - Communication skills
OF 11) The acquisition of adequate skills and tools for communication will be verified during the evaluation test. The oral exam requires the student to express herself/himself with scientific language and follow a rigorous logic in reasoning.

E - Ability to learn
OF 12) The work required for this course stimulates the development of a flexible mentality, useful both for more advanced scientific studies and in the context of various workplaces.

It is required that the student has the knowledge of the non-abelian gauge theories and that he/she knows the basic concepts necessary for the construction of the Standard Model lagrangian in particular the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking, the Goldstone theorem and the Higgs mechanism.

1) THE STANDARD MODEL AS AN EFFECTIVE FIELD THEORY
- Field content, quantum numbers, cancellation of gauge anomalies
- Mass spectrum and couplings at tree level
- CKM matrix and CP violation
- Accidental symmetries, neutrino masses, proton decay, Grand Unification
- Quick and qualitative discussion about the strong CP problem

2) ELECTROWEAK SYMMETRY BREAKING
- Perturbative description and its limitations, non-perturbative approach and physical meaning of EWSB
- Perturbative unitarity of scattering amplitudes, equivalence theorem, role of the Higgs boson
- Naturalness of the electroweak scale and the hierarchy problem of the SM

3) ELECTROWEAK AND HIGGS PRECISION TESTS
- Electroweak precision observables, minimal set of theoretical parameters and their
interpretation in the framework of the EFT approach
- Higgs production and decay processes
- Determination of Higgs couplings and properties, global fit to the SMEFT

4) FLAVOR PHYSICS
- Leptonic and semileptonic decays of pions and kaons
- Pion decay to two photons
- Measurement of Vud e Vus
- Delta S=1 effective Hamiltonian, QCD corrections and their resummation through the RG group, Delta I=1/2 rule
- Delta S=2 effective Hamiltonian, kaon anti-kaon mixing
- CP violation in the mixing and in the decay
- B mesons: semileptonic decays, mixing and CP violation
- Rare decays, tests of lepton universality and lepton flavor violation

5) NEUTRINO PHYSICS
- Weyl e Majorana fermions
- Seesaw mechanism and neutrino masses
- Neutrino oscillations
- Neutrinoless double beta decay

- M.D. Schwartz: Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Mode, Cambridge.
- Donoghue, Golowich, Holstein: Dynamics of the Standard Model,Cambridge.
- Peskin, Schroeder, Quantum Field Theory, ABP.
- Other references will appear on the website of the course

- M.D. Schwartz: Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Mode, Cambridge.
- Donoghue, Golowich, Holstein: Dynamics of the Standard Model,Cambridge.
- Peskin, Schroeder, Quantum Field Theory, ABP.
- Other references will appear on the website of the course

Lectures and training sessions in classroom

Attendance to the lectures is not mandatory but strongly recommended.

Oral exam