HET614 Introduction to Particle Physics and High Energy Astrophysics

Credit Points:
12.5

Duration & Workload:
One semester, equivalent to a 5 contact hour per week lecture course

Prerequisites:
HET605 Theories of Space and Time, introductory tertiary-level mathematics and physics (or equivalent)

Aims:
This unit provides a general introduction to particle physics in general and to modern high-energy astrophysics in particular.

Content:

  • Probing the atom: the atom and electrons, the nucleus and nucleons
  • Conservation laws and fundamental forces: charge, energy, momentum; neutrinos; gravitational, electromagnetic, strong and weak forces; interactions and Feynman diagrams
  • Antimatter: positrons, properties of antimatter, other antimatter particles
  • The Particle Zoo: pions, muons, species of neutrinos and antineutrinos, particle classifications
  • Conservation laws revisited: lepton, baryon number, strangeness, reaction rules
  • The Quark Model: building mesons and baryons out of quarks, quarks and the classification scheme, experimental evidence for quarks, the Standard Model and quark flavours
  • Acceleration of Charged Particles: particle accelerators, colliders, particle detectors
  • Solar, cosmic ray and neutrino astronomy: accelerating particles and solar flares, pair production, synchrotron radiation and magnetic fields, neutrinos and weak interactions, neutrino oscillations, Cerenkov radiation, lepton scattering
  • Neutron stars: strong interactions, interiors and nuclear matter, Compton and inverse Compton scattering, QPO sources, millisecond X-ray pulsars
  • X-ray and Gamma-Ray Astronomy: supersoft X-ray sources, Jets, TeV gamma-ray emission from the Crab Nebula, detecting the supergalactic plane, highest energy gamma-ray sources, Gamma Ray Bursters - detection, possible production processes and astronomical sources
  • Gravitational wave astronomy: gravitons, binary and colliding neutron stars and black holes
  • Exotics: quark stars, searching for dark matter & WIMPs
  • Particle Physics and Cosmology: cosmic microwave background, scattering, matter and antimatter, symmetry breaking, primordial black holes, fundamental constants and cosmological time
  • Grand Unified Theories (GUTs), Theories of Everything (TOEs) and implications for cosmology
Teaching Method:
This unit will be presented in on-line delivery mode, with contact via newsgroup and e-mail.

Assessment Method:
Assessable newsgroup contributions, assignments and project.

Textbook:
For information about the textbook, follow this link