Below, you can find some materials that I have created for training my research group as well as for teaching. You are free to use these materials for personal or educational purposes. In some instances, they are still works in progress, and comments and corrections are welcome! If you would like to contribute to or adapt any of these resources, please feel free to email me.
Research Notes
These are materials that I provide for students in the context of directed readings in preparation for research in particle physics. They are not meant to be comprehensive, but instead are intended to introduce students quickly to foundational concepts in particle physics that are needed to engage with the research literature as well as their own research projects. These resources were developed to be accessible to first-year students at Harvey Mudd College, all of whom have taken calculus, special relativity, and some mechanics. Students with a less extensive preparation in math and physics can skip over some of the more technical bits, while more advanced students may want to delve into more of the details.
Introduction to particle physics: a qualitative and quantitative overview of the particles and forces in our current theory of particle physics, as well as an introduction to Feynman diagrams. Last updated: August 2022
IN PROGRESS: Particle cosmology: a primer for the essentials needed to do research in particle cosmology (dark matter and/or baryogenesis). Topics include: an overview of the problems of dark matter and the baryon asymmetry, mathematical description of expanding spacetime, effect of the universe’s expansion on elementary particles, thermodynamics and Boltzmann equations. Last updated: February 2023
Particle Physics Lectures
A set of four introductory lectures on Standard Model theory at the TRISEP 2023 summer school for graduate students in theoretical and experimental particle physics, cosmology, and astroparticle physics:
Lecture 1: Overview of Standard Model, gauge invariance, massive spin-1 particles, Abelian Higgs mechanism
Lecture 2: Fermion masses, unitarity at high energies, Stückelberg limit, non-Abelian gauge theory
Lecture 3: Electroweak theory, Goldstone boson equivalence theorem, Higgs boson phenomenology, electroweak precision tests
Lecture 4: Current tensions in electroweak theory, flavour and neutrino oscillations, Dirac and Majorana neutrino masses