Product Description
Supersymmetry represents the culmination of the search for fundamental symmetries that has dominated particle physics for 50 years. Traditionally, the constituents of matter (fermions) were regarded as different from the particles (bosons) transmitting the forces between them. In supersymmetry, fermions and bosons are unified. Intended for graduate students in particle physics, and researchers in experimental and phenomenological supersymmetry, this is the first tex… More >>
Supersymmetry in Particle Physics: An Elementary Introduction
Tags: bosons, constituents, culmination, elementary introduction, fermions, fundamental symmetries, graduate students, particle physics, particles, supersymmetry
#1 by Diego Casadei on July 1, 2010 - 8:24 pm
If you are a physics student with good knowledge of quantum field theory or an experimentalist working on high-energy physics, and need a quick reference on supersymmetry (SUSY) on which you can find the rationale behind it, in addition to the most useful cross-section formulae, then the book by Ian Aitchison is probably the best choice for you. If you have no idea about SUSY but want (or need) to learn its basics, again this is a very good choice. On the other hand, if you already know SUSY quite a bit, and want to go into deeper details, this is probably not the best book for you, but I’m sure you would enjoy reading it.
Actually, the SUSY case is a very peculiar one: even though no experimental evidence has yet been collected in favor of this model, theoreticians consider it so “natural” that most extensions of the standard model (SM) of particle physics include SUSY. Even more, nowadays SUSY is considered standard material for (advanced) courses in the physicist’s curriculum, so that a few textbooks exist.
The Aitchison’s textbook has its strongest point in the author’s effort to provide a smooth transition between the mathematical tools used to build the SM and the SUSY technicalities. This implies a choice over the formalism, which is similar to what one can find in the well known (and publicly available) “Supersymmetry Primer” (arXiv: hep-ph/9709356), by Stephen P. Martin: two-component Weyl spinors are used in place of four-component Dirac or Maiorana spinors, to describe the fields associated with matter particles. However, in order to make relatively easy to cross-check other references (as other textbooks or review papers), Aitchison also explains how to switch between the three formalisms just mentioned, making the book a really precious reference.
Perhaps, this is not the only book on SUSY one should buy, but it is probably the first. The author has explicitly decided to avoid explaining several things about SUSY, as the introduction of fermionic dimensions in addition to the normal (bosonic) ones, i.e. the “superspace” formalism (but chapter 6 is nevertheless devoted to superfields). In addition, Aitchison sometimes relies on the books on the SM he wrote together with Hey Gauge Theories in Particle Physics, 2 Volume Set, so that learning SUSY is smoothest for people having studied quantum field theory on that books. Aitchison tried to mention everything which is necessary to understand his explanations about SUSY, so to have a self-contained book, but sometimes I felt a bit disappointed because I did not have the chance to check his books on SM while reading that on SUSY. However, this does not mean that one can not follow the explanations. Rather, one simply has to accept that some relation holds, just to be able to use it in the computation. Not a big problem, at the end of the day. In conclusion, I warmly recommend this book.
Rating: 4 / 5
#2 by Patrick Labelle on July 1, 2010 - 8:43 pm
This is a very pedagogical introduction to supersymmetry, with emphasis on
phenomenological implications (in the context of the minimal supersymmetric
standard model and some of its extensions).
Professor Aitchison assumes only some background in basic quantum field theory, at the level of a first year graduate level class. Superfields are not emphasized (there is a short chapter devoted to the basic concept but they are not used in the rest of the book). Instead, all calculations are done using component fields. The emphasis is definitely on phenomenology and the last fifty pages or so are devoted to calculations of masses and some sample decay rates and cross sections.
This is an extremely valuable introduction to supersymmetry, particularly to the phenomenology of supersymmetry. A good complement to Professor Aitchison’s book is “Supersymmetry Demystified” which is at the same level (and therefore suitable for students having only some basic background in quantum field theory) but which covers more extensively the superfield formalism, SUSY bkreaking and the SUSY algebra.
Rating: 5 / 5