Fundamental concepts in Particle Physics: course

The course will provide an introduction to some of the basic theoretical techniques used to describe the fundamental particles and their interactions. Of central importance to our understanding of these forces are the underlying symmetries of nature and I will review the nature of these symmetries and how they are used to build a predictive theory. I discuss how the combination of quantum mechanics and relativity leads to the quantum field theory (QFT) description of the states of matter and their interactions. The Feynman rules used to determine the QFT predictions for experimentally measurable processes are derived and applied to the calculation of decay widths and cross sections.