Academic Team

Type: Optional– PEC Track – 3rd Trimester

This course explores the key unresolved questions in the Standard Model of Fundamental Interactions and the theoretical approaches proposed to address them. Students will examine topics such as chiral symmetry and light quarks, anomalies and their phenomenological impact, the hierarchy and flavour problems, neutrino physics, and the strong CP problem.

The syllabus covers:

• Symmetries of the Standard Model and the nature of fermion masses (Dirac and Majorana).
• Anomalies, B–L conservation, and chiral symmetry.
• Effective field theories and the hierarchy problem.
• Flavour physics: CKM and PMNS matrices, CP violation, the GIM mechanism, and matter–antimatter asymmetry.
• Neutrino oscillations, experimental results, and the Seesaw mechanism.
• The strong CP problem, electric dipole moments, and the axion.

Through lectures and discussions, students will gain a deeper understanding of the conceptual and experimental challenges that drive research beyond the Standard Model, equipping them with the knowledge base needed to engage with cutting-edge developments in particle physics.

Reading List

• Gauge Theory of Elementary Particle Physics, T.-P. Cheng & L.-F. Li (Oxford University Press)

• Dynamics of the Standard Model, J. Donoghue, E. Golowich & B. Holstein (Cambridge University Press)

Teaching Plan Information

Course Schedule