Physics 745 - Spring 2014
Particle Dynamics
Contact Information
Learning Outcomes (includes Syllabus)
Course Policies and Classwork
Methods of Evaluation
Course Content
Times: TTh 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Room: PSC 404c
Professor: Prof. Milind V. Purohit
Office: PSC 404c
Office Hours: Afternoons, by arrangement
Phone: 777-6996
Home Page: "Milind V. Purohit's Home Page"
By the end of the term, successful students should be able to understand the
following and use these concepts in research:
- The quark model and classification of hadrons.
- Fundamentals of decay rate and cross-section calculations.
- Basic quantum electrodynamics calculations.
- Quantum Chromodynamics calculations.
- Weak Interactions.
- Particle physics detector simulations.
- Probability and Statistics in Particle Physics analyses.
Students are expected to know undergraduate physics thoroughly, and
have a deep interest in particle physics, typical for students wishing
to pursue graduate or undergraduate research in this area. Also,
students should know mathematical methods of physics.
Course Policies (from CTE website):
The University of South Carolina has clearly articulated its policies
governing academic integrity and students are encouraged to carefully
review the policy on the Honor Code in the Carolina Community. Any
deviation from these expectations will result in academic penalties as
well as disciplinary action. The area of greatest potential risk for
inadvertent academic dishonesty is plagiarism. Plagiarism includes, but
is not limited to, paraphrasing or direct quotation of the published or
unpublished work of another person without full and clear
acknowledgement.
Classwork:
Classwork will consist of computer simulation exercises, on-board
solutions of problems by students and / or presentations. Students will
be encouraged to participate in discussions and demonstrate
understanding in one or more of these ways.
Students are evaluated through the semester using classwork and
homework.
Grading:
Students turning in less than 70% of homeworks will automatically earn
an F grade. For other students, the course score will be calculated as
follows:
Classwork: 40%, Homework: 60%.
Typical minimum scores for grades are as follows.
A: 90%. B+: 85%. B: 75%. C+: 70%. C: 60%. D: 50%.
Homework:
Homework problems will be assigned every week and will
be due at the Wednesday class of the next week.
Homework that is up to one week late earns 50% points; after that no
credit will be given.
Once past the simple homeworks, here are some suggested advanced
homeworks:
- For a "mixed" sample of cos(θ) values distributed according
to a mixture of flat and sin2(θ) distributions,
create a program that does the following:
- reads in the data and stores it in an array accessible to a function
- create a function which computes χ2 for a given value of "f",
the fraction of events with a "flat" distribution
- plot χ2 vs. f in the range [0, 1]
- fit the region near the minimum to a quadratic BY HAND (i.e.,
within the program and not using ROOT)
- use elementary calculus to find the minimum and the error on f
Do this for 100 events you generate yourself, and also for the given sample of
1 million events. Report the error in both cases.
- Create a program to generate e+e- interaction events a la Belle II.
Start with e+e- of appropriate energies, and create the full chain:
e+e- → Upsilon(4S)
Upsilon(4S) → B+B- or B0-B0bar (50/50 probability)
B → D* pi (choose appropriate D* and pi!)
D* → D0 pi
D0 → K-pi+
pi0 → γγ
pi+ → μ+ νμ
with all charge conjugate decays implied. Once the program works,
make lots of distributions: final state distributions of pions,
photons, kaons. Try to make mass plots to "find" pi0
mesons and D0, D*, B mesons, etc.
Attendance: Mandatory!
The course content is derived from a variety of sources, including the
texts below.
Texts:
-
Griffiths, David. "Introduction to Elementary Particles",
Wiley-VCH; 2nd edition (October 13, 2008). ISBN: 978-3527406012.
In this course we focus on basic concepts of particle physics:
Fermi's golden rule, luminosity, cross-sections, QED,
QCD, Weak interactions, detectors and searches for new physics.
Office of Student Disability Services policy statement
"Any student with a documented disability should contact the Office of
Student Disability Services at 803-777-6142 to make arrangements for
appropriate accommodations."
This page is maintained by
"Milind V. Purohit"