Fermions and bosons

Particle Physics 3: Supersymmetry and Grand Unification (Spring, 2010)

Lecture Playlist

  1. Renormalization concepts, and dimensional analysis

  2. Fermions and bosons

  3. Propagators and renormalization of mass

  4. Symmetry and Grassmann numbers

  5. A first supersymmetric model

  6. Supersymmetry building blocks

  7. Lagrangians that preserve supersymmetry

  8. Generalizing supersymmetry to 3+1 spacetime, and QFT

  9. Supersymmetry breaking and an introduction to grand unified theories

  10. GUTs, the SU(5) representation, proton decay

April 5, 2010

Professor Susskind starts with the topic of rotations, showing that particles under rotation by 2π either return to their initial state (wavefunction) or to their initial wavefunction multiplied by a phase of -1. The first case corresponds to bosons and the second to fermions. He then uses this difference to show that bosons contribute positively to vacuum energy and fermions contribute negatively.

Topics: 
  • Rotation of particles with spin
  • Fermions and bosons
  • Contributions to vacuum energy
  • Do fermions and bosons come in pairs?