"The QFT book errata" - читать интересную книгу автора (Siegel W.)

FIELDS
FIELDS

Where to get it

  • arXiv.org: usual formats -- pdf, ps, tex + eps figures, etc.
  • archive here: tex + eps figures + pdf figures, suitable for pdftex (or TeXShop); Unix/Mac OS X format (if you're using Mac OS ≤ 9, time to upgrade!)
  • pdf here: produced by pdftex (may be slightly better than arXiv.org version)
PDF is the best format for preprints from arXiv.org. You can use arXiv.org's mirrors if they are closer. (Set your cookie at mirrors to PDF, if they still need it.) View with Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.01 or later. (Ghostscript/view sometimes has problems.) Sorry, we aren't mailing printed copies. If you still have computer-related problems, please contact your System Manager before e-mailing me.

What makes it different

  • It's free.
  • It's fast. You can download it from arXiv.org or its mirrors, just like preprints, without a trip to the library or bookstore or waiting for an order from the publisher.
  • It's electronic. You can print it, but the PDF version has many advantages, like:
    • Download it at work, home, etc. (or carry it on a CD), rather than carrying a book or printing multiple copies.
    • Get updates just as quickly, rather than printing yet again.
    • It has the usual Web links, so you can get the referenced papers just as easily.
    • It has a separate "outline" window containing a table of contents on which you can click to take the main window to that item.
    • You can electronically search (do a "find" on) the text.
    • Save trees (and ink).
    • Theft is not a problem.
    • No wear or tear.
    • No paper cuts.
  • It covers many recent topics at an introductory yet nontrivial level, such as:
    • supersymmetry
    • general relativity
    • supergravity
    • strings
  • It introduces many topics not appearing in other textbooks, including:
    • 1/N expansion (color ordering) in QCD, including relation to random worldsheets
    • spacecone (spinor helicity), including explicit calculations of 4- and 5-point S-matrices in Yang-Mills
    • many useful gauges, such as Gervais-Neveu, Nielsen-Kallosh, unitary lightcone, and even string gauges in gravity
    • finite N=1 supersymmetric theories
  • It is NOT:
    • a history book. All the other recent, comprehensive field theory texts take the "traditional" approach of covering topics in chronological (rather than logical) order, in storybook fashion. (This is strongly reminiscent of introductory classical mechanics courses that still teach Newton's laws before energy-momentum conservation.) This book takes advantage of hindsight, using what we now know to be the most efficient and general approaches. (For example, these other texts still quantize QED canonically, even though they know that method is inadequate for QCD. Some even claim path integrals are less rigorous, even though constructive quantum field theory has shown the opposite to be true.) Whenever I have questioned anyone who prefers the traditional approach, after eliminating all the spurious clichés, it all boils down to nostalgia. (I have even heard the excuse that it is useful to learn the less useful approaches simply because they ultimately failed --- certainly an excellent reason to relegate these topics to true history courses, for those who have the time and interest.)
    • an art book. It covers topics that have proven useful, not those that have appealed to certain tastes.
    • a concept book. All the recent texts that use a modern approach, although giving the appearance of being comprehensive except for conciseness, are curiously deficient in explicit S-matrix calculations, especially for QCD. This book both includes modern concepts and calculates with them.
    • a cookbook. Some books race to Feynman diagrams as quickly as possible, because they either consider them the only useful part of field theory, or they think such an approach is an introductory one. (One consequence is that the Higgs effect must take a back seat, and thus weak interactions are underemphasized or explained more phenomenologically.) This book contains both concepts and calculations, since the dualistic approach of concept book plus calculation book has always proved deficient for lack of two good books that work well together.
    • a survey. With few exceptions, theories are described in this book at a level that allows explicit calculations.
For information on my course based on this book, see my PHY 610-611 page.
This book was the most downloaded paper from the CERN Document Server in 2000 and #4 in 2001.
See also the APS News article.
An interesting article on open source books.

Corrections, additions, etc., to second edition ("v2")

Already?
  1. I set the margins wrong (because I neglected to notice my reinstallation of TeX reset the paper size to A4). This will probably be a slight problem only to people who download it from the US, who can instead download the PDF file from this page (see top of page). Alternatively, you can replace the (uncommented) "offset" commands at the beginning of the .tex file with:
    \advance\voffset by .12in \advance\hoffset by .24in
  2. p. 47, exercise IA2.3b: |ζ> = e-ζa†|0>, etc.
    Also, гЂ€О¶|ОЁгЂ‰= ОЁ(О¶*), and expand in О¶*.
  3. pp. 182, 197, 366, 579, 682, 751: We have seen that the lightcone gauge is a special case of the covariant (affine, conformal, Landau, or de Donder) gauge, where more components are eliminated (a unitary gauge). In other textbooks, gauge fixing to a unitary gauge is always performed in two steps, by first going to a covariant gauge, and then using the "residual" gauge invariance to completely fix the gauge. (This is always done when discussing radiation or Feynman diagram external line factors, e.g., for gauge fields or gravity.) When this procedure is explicitly performed, the result can be seen to be a lightcone gauge. Clearly it is easier to perform all the gauge fixing in one step. (The results of chapter XII show this works for arbitrary theories.)
  4. p. 295, after 1st eq.: "te" -> "the"
  5. p. 324, last paragraph: quotes on ``Klein"
  6. Subsections VIB2, IXB1, etc.: The "Lorentz gauge" is apparently the "Lorenz gauge" --
    L. Lorenz, Philos.Mag. 34 (1867) 287.
  7. p. 463, above exercise VIIC1.1: "do" -> "does"
  8. p. 562, new exercise: Show that for a=Вј (using the scalar's free field equation) one obtains a result in agreement with that at the end of subsection IIIA4 in flat space. This is the simplest form of the energy-momentum tensor, and the most physical (since it involves only the relative momentum of the two fields, not the total). This choice for a is also favored by string theory, as we'll see later.
  9. p. 676, new exercise: Calculate the tree scattering amplitude of two spinless particles of equal mass due to the exchange of a particle of spin J with coupling and propagator as given at the end of subsection IIIA4. Show that at the pole in t the leading contribution in s goes as sJ.
  10. p. 693, exercise XIA6.2: Hint -- see exercise XIA1.1.
  11. pp. 693 and 787: one version of "A" missing a "g2"
  12. p. 707: "(2)" at end of line should begin next line (just cosmetic, but I can afford to be picky now)
  13. p. 719, exercise XIC1.1:
    1. The first action should have the "n" and "n+1" subscripts switched.
    2. Part d: The second action should be
      i∑n(ψ̄n+1 - ψ̄n) ψn
    3. Part e: Delete the (incorrect) hint.

FIELDS
FIELDS

Where to get it

  • arXiv.org: usual formats -- pdf, ps, tex + eps figures, etc.
  • archive here: tex + eps figures + pdf figures, suitable for pdftex (or TeXShop); Unix/Mac OS X format (if you're using Mac OS ≤ 9, time to upgrade!)
  • pdf here: produced by pdftex (may be slightly better than arXiv.org version)
PDF is the best format for preprints from arXiv.org. You can use arXiv.org's mirrors if they are closer. (Set your cookie at mirrors to PDF, if they still need it.) View with Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.01 or later. (Ghostscript/view sometimes has problems.) Sorry, we aren't mailing printed copies. If you still have computer-related problems, please contact your System Manager before e-mailing me.

What makes it different

  • It's free.
  • It's fast. You can download it from arXiv.org or its mirrors, just like preprints, without a trip to the library or bookstore or waiting for an order from the publisher.
  • It's electronic. You can print it, but the PDF version has many advantages, like:
    • Download it at work, home, etc. (or carry it on a CD), rather than carrying a book or printing multiple copies.
    • Get updates just as quickly, rather than printing yet again.
    • It has the usual Web links, so you can get the referenced papers just as easily.
    • It has a separate "outline" window containing a table of contents on which you can click to take the main window to that item.
    • You can electronically search (do a "find" on) the text.
    • Save trees (and ink).
    • Theft is not a problem.
    • No wear or tear.
    • No paper cuts.
  • It covers many recent topics at an introductory yet nontrivial level, such as:
    • supersymmetry
    • general relativity
    • supergravity
    • strings
  • It introduces many topics not appearing in other textbooks, including:
    • 1/N expansion (color ordering) in QCD, including relation to random worldsheets
    • spacecone (spinor helicity), including explicit calculations of 4- and 5-point S-matrices in Yang-Mills
    • many useful gauges, such as Gervais-Neveu, Nielsen-Kallosh, unitary lightcone, and even string gauges in gravity
    • finite N=1 supersymmetric theories
  • It is NOT:
    • a history book. All the other recent, comprehensive field theory texts take the "traditional" approach of covering topics in chronological (rather than logical) order, in storybook fashion. (This is strongly reminiscent of introductory classical mechanics courses that still teach Newton's laws before energy-momentum conservation.) This book takes advantage of hindsight, using what we now know to be the most efficient and general approaches. (For example, these other texts still quantize QED canonically, even though they know that method is inadequate for QCD. Some even claim path integrals are less rigorous, even though constructive quantum field theory has shown the opposite to be true.) Whenever I have questioned anyone who prefers the traditional approach, after eliminating all the spurious clichés, it all boils down to nostalgia. (I have even heard the excuse that it is useful to learn the less useful approaches simply because they ultimately failed --- certainly an excellent reason to relegate these topics to true history courses, for those who have the time and interest.)
    • an art book. It covers topics that have proven useful, not those that have appealed to certain tastes.
    • a concept book. All the recent texts that use a modern approach, although giving the appearance of being comprehensive except for conciseness, are curiously deficient in explicit S-matrix calculations, especially for QCD. This book both includes modern concepts and calculates with them.
    • a cookbook. Some books race to Feynman diagrams as quickly as possible, because they either consider them the only useful part of field theory, or they think such an approach is an introductory one. (One consequence is that the Higgs effect must take a back seat, and thus weak interactions are underemphasized or explained more phenomenologically.) This book contains both concepts and calculations, since the dualistic approach of concept book plus calculation book has always proved deficient for lack of two good books that work well together.
    • a survey. With few exceptions, theories are described in this book at a level that allows explicit calculations.
For information on my course based on this book, see my PHY 610-611 page.
This book was the most downloaded paper from the CERN Document Server in 2000 and #4 in 2001.
See also the APS News article.
An interesting article on open source books.

Corrections, additions, etc., to second edition ("v2")

Already?
  1. I set the margins wrong (because I neglected to notice my reinstallation of TeX reset the paper size to A4). This will probably be a slight problem only to people who download it from the US, who can instead download the PDF file from this page (see top of page). Alternatively, you can replace the (uncommented) "offset" commands at the beginning of the .tex file with:
    \advance\voffset by .12in \advance\hoffset by .24in
  2. p. 47, exercise IA2.3b: |ζ> = e-ζa†|0>, etc.
    Also, гЂ€О¶|ОЁгЂ‰= ОЁ(О¶*), and expand in О¶*.
  3. pp. 182, 197, 366, 579, 682, 751: We have seen that the lightcone gauge is a special case of the covariant (affine, conformal, Landau, or de Donder) gauge, where more components are eliminated (a unitary gauge). In other textbooks, gauge fixing to a unitary gauge is always performed in two steps, by first going to a covariant gauge, and then using the "residual" gauge invariance to completely fix the gauge. (This is always done when discussing radiation or Feynman diagram external line factors, e.g., for gauge fields or gravity.) When this procedure is explicitly performed, the result can be seen to be a lightcone gauge. Clearly it is easier to perform all the gauge fixing in one step. (The results of chapter XII show this works for arbitrary theories.)
  4. p. 295, after 1st eq.: "te" -> "the"
  5. p. 324, last paragraph: quotes on ``Klein"
  6. Subsections VIB2, IXB1, etc.: The "Lorentz gauge" is apparently the "Lorenz gauge" --
    L. Lorenz, Philos.Mag. 34 (1867) 287.
  7. p. 463, above exercise VIIC1.1: "do" -> "does"
  8. p. 562, new exercise: Show that for a=Вј (using the scalar's free field equation) one obtains a result in agreement with that at the end of subsection IIIA4 in flat space. This is the simplest form of the energy-momentum tensor, and the most physical (since it involves only the relative momentum of the two fields, not the total). This choice for a is also favored by string theory, as we'll see later.
  9. p. 676, new exercise: Calculate the tree scattering amplitude of two spinless particles of equal mass due to the exchange of a particle of spin J with coupling and propagator as given at the end of subsection IIIA4. Show that at the pole in t the leading contribution in s goes as sJ.
  10. p. 693, exercise XIA6.2: Hint -- see exercise XIA1.1.
  11. pp. 693 and 787: one version of "A" missing a "g2"
  12. p. 707: "(2)" at end of line should begin next line (just cosmetic, but I can afford to be picky now)
  13. p. 719, exercise XIC1.1:
    1. The first action should have the "n" and "n+1" subscripts switched.
    2. Part d: The second action should be
      i∑n(ψ̄n+1 - ψ̄n) ψn
    3. Part e: Delete the (incorrect) hint.