Particles and fundamental interactions

Introduction

Fundamental forces and elementary constituents of matter.

Relativistic kinematics and dynamics

Lorentz transformations. Invariants and four-vectors. Conservation of energy and momentum.

Interaction of Radiation with Matter

Energy loss and Coulomb scattering of charged particles. Photon interactions with matter. Introduction to Feynman diagrams.

Particle Detection
Scintillators, counters and multi-wire gas ionization chambers, semiconductor detectors, Cherenkov detectors, electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters.

Particle Accelerators

Linear accelerator, cyclotron, synchro-cyclotron, synchrotron, collider.

Particle Physics

Positron and antimatter. Neutrino, Pauli's hypothesis and its discovery. Pion and muon, discoveries and properties. Fermi's Golden Rule. Metastable states and resonances.

Particle Classification and Conservation Laws

Spin, isospin, baryon number, strangeness, lepton numbers.

Quark Structure of Hadrons

Quarks, gluons, and the strong interaction.

Heavy Flavors

Charm, beauty, top quark, and the tau lepton.

Weak Interaction and Vector Bosons

W and Z bosons. The Higgs boson.