Field Theory: A Modern Primer

Frontiers in Physics

by Pierre Ramond

Presents recent advances of perturbative relativistic field theory in a pedagogical and straightforward way. For graduate students who intend to specialize in high-energy physics.

Genres: Physics

397 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Ramond played a major role in the development of superstring theory. In 1971, Ramond generalized Dirac's work for point-like particles to stringlike ones. In this process he discovered two-dimensional supersymmetry and laid the ground for supersymmetry in four spacetime dimensions. He found the spectrum of fermionic modes in string theory and the paper started superstring theory. From this paper André Neveu and John Schwarz developed a string theory with both fermions and bosons.

According to quantum mechanics, particles can be divided into two types: bosons and fermions. The distinction between bosons and fermions is basic. Fermions are particles which have half integer spin (1/2, 3/2, 5/2 and so on), measured in units of Planck's constant and bosons are particles which have integer spin (0, 1, 2 and so on), measured in units of Planck's constant. Examples of fermions are quarks, leptons and baryons. Quantum of fundamental forces such as gravitons, photons, etc. are all bosons. In quantum field theory, fermions interact by exchanging bosons.

Early string theory proposed by Yoichiro Nambu and others in 1970 was only a bosonic string. Ramond completed the theory by inventing a fermionic string to accompany the bosonic ones. The Virasoro algebra which is the symmetry algebra of the bosonic string was generalized to a superconformal algebra (the Ramond algebra, an example of a super Virasoro algebra) including anticommuting operators also.

Reviews

[Alessandro Valenti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting contents but actually full of errors (errata corrige pages long) and many calculations are not explicitely performed

[albin james · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Man With the Child in His Eyes"

from "The Kick Inside"
Written by Kate Bush

("He's here! He's here!
He's here! He's here!")

I hear him, before I go to sleep
And focus on the day that's been.
I realise he's there,
When I turn the light off and turn over.

Nobody knows about my man.
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And suddenly I find myself
Listening to a man I've never known before,

Telling me about the sea,
All his love, 'til eternity.

Ooh, he's here again,
The man with the child in his eyes.
Ooh, he's here again,
The man with the child in his eyes.

He's very understanding,
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They say, "No, no, it won't last forever."
And here I am again, my girl,
Wondering what on Earth I'm doing here.
Maybe he doesn't love me.
I just took a trip on my love for him.

Ooh, he's here again,
The man with the child in his eyes.
Ooh, he's here again,
The man with the child in his eyes.

©1978 EMI/Kate Bush

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