I have received recently a shiny new copy of the book by Tom Banks: Modern QFT, a concise introduction. Tom is one of the deepest thinkers I know, as well as one of the best mentors in the business. The way I think about many issues in QFT and quantum gravity, and physics in general, was shaped by many hours of conversations with him. I was therefore waiting impatiently for the release of this book, and when I finally got it, it did not disappoint (any text about QFT that starts with a section “Why QFT?”, cannot be all bad…). Since it really is concise, it probably should not be the only QFT text you read. But, if you want to understand the subject well, and see how all the parts fit together, this should definitely be one of the first places to look.
Recommendation
November 6, 2008 by Moshe
Posted in high energy physics, Physics, quantum fields | 11 Comments
11 Responses
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Any recommended reading on Schwinger pair production? I have looked up Itzykson-Zuber but could need some more elaboration on the issue.
How does this book compare with Zee’s Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell? If I already have Zee, should I get this one or look elsewhere for a book to complement it?
Bee, I’ll get back to you privately.
Blake, I am not that familiar with the Zee text. What I like specifically about the book by Tom Banks is that the conceptual issues are clean and well explained. The “Why QFT” section deals with the right way to think about quantum fields and why they are necessary. The chapter about renormalization describes the Wilsonian viewpoint, and defines what is QFT. These two topics specifically are often muddled, and sometime just plain wrong, in many texts, especially older ones. I’d probably start with this book, and supplement it with one that is more oriented towards calculational techniques. Not sure how the Zee book fits in…
Since we are talking about books, does anyone know about a good modern “Standard Model book” that is up to date and pedagogic enough for teaching a class?
I’ve been asking around and no one has ben able to give me a hint. Some older books (circa 1995) are still ok, but for many aspects they are very out of date…
Hi David, did you take a look at this one?
(among the older ones, I thought the one by Georgi is pretty decent).
Whenever this subject comes up, I always post a link to this page which contains an excellent discussion of QFT texts.
David,
As students, last year several of us at Cambridge’s Part III in Mathematics were heavily using ‘Standard Model: a primer’, by Burgess and Moore. It’s probably the most recent book on that topic.
Bee,
I always find Schwinger’s original paper (Physical Review, Vol 82, p664, 1951, reprinted in Selected Papers on QED by Schwinger) to be the best reference. It is a bit of work to go through, but it is also very complete.
Thanks for the recommendation. We don’t have it here, and since I’m the librarian, I went ahead and bought it. So, there is at least one sale from the blog post.
Excellent, enjoy!
Thanks Moshe, I’ll take a look at it. From the table of contents it covers quite a bit of what I want to cover. I’ll let you know later if it works for me or not.