Week 11-12: Electroweak Interactions and Grand Unification.

Learning Outcomes:

  • The electroweak interaction is a fundamental force representing the unification of the electromagnetic and weak nuclear interactions.
  • The work of three physicists, Glashow, Weinberg, and Salam, showed that the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces can be understood as a single interaction.
  • Other physicists renormalized the Weinberg-Salam-Glashow model by spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry and by introducing a new particle, the Higgs boson.
  • The electroweak theory has great predictive power. For example, it successfully predicted the masses of force-carrying particles of the weak interaction, the W and Z bosons.
  • In combination with quantum chromodynamics, the theory describing the strong nuclear interaction, electroweak theory forms the standard model of particle physics.
  • Electroweak unification is an important step toward the goal in physics of uniting all four fundamental interactions.

 

Lesson Plan:

Lecture 01: Electroweak Interactions - I

Lecture 02: Electroweak Interactions - II

Lecture 03: Electroweak Interactions - III

Lecture 04: Grand Unification - I

Lecture 05: Grand Unification - II

Lecture 06: Grand Unification - III

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