Quantum: The Quantum Theory of Particles, Fields and Cosmology [Paperback]

A new approach to the teaching of quantum physics. The first seven chapters present nonrelativistic quantum mechanics and its interpretation, as well as perturbations and scattering theory. While including Dirac's and Feynman's formalisms, the chapter on symmetry also treats gauge transformations. The quantum theory of angular momentum includes the isospin of leptons and quarks and uses as a new tool the graphical spin algebra. The second part of the book is devoted to quantum fields: Boson fields including Higgs fields, Dirac's theory of Fermion fields, quantum electrodynamic and quantum chromodynamics. The whole is rounded off by a brief review guaranteed to raise the students' interests in quantum cosmology.
Readers will also find many detailed worked examples and numerous problems designed to test their own understanding.I consider teaching to have been one of my greatest privileges in life. I have al? ways attemped to make a matter, sometimes difficult, sometimes in constant evolution, simpler and easier to understand. There comes a time then, when one feels the necessity to write and publish a book. For this reason, I have already published (in french) several lecture books on Classical Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics, Matrix Optics, Electroweak Interaction, General Rel? ativity and Gravitation, Cosmology. Teaching quantum theory has been a particular delight as its constant evolution and enlargement, embraces all domains of physics. Even if the general layout remains relatively unchanged, the evolution of our understanding of the physical world imposes the in? troduction of new approaches. It therefore seemed that a physics textbook, even one with a graduate readership in mind, had to introduce the Dirac Electron Theory and some rudimentary material on quantum field theory. This holds for also for explanations of the spontaneous symmetry breaking of Higgs scalar fields that gives mass to the bosons involved in short range interactions. We have deliberaló&