An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory is a textbook intended for the graduate physics course covering relativistic quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, and Feynman diagrams. The authors make these subjects accessible through carefully worked examples illustrating the technical aspects of the subject, and intuitive explanations of what is going on behind the mathematics. After presenting the basics of quantum electrodynamics, the authors discuss the theory of renormalization and its relation to statistical mechanics, and introduce the renormalization group. This discussion sets the stage for a discussion of the physical principles that underlie the fundamental interactions of elementary particle physics and their description by gauge field theories.

Table of Contents

Feynman Diagrams and Quantum Electrodynamics * Invitation: Pair Production in e+e- Annihilation * The Klein-Gordon Field * The Dirac Field * Interacting Fields and Feynman Diagrams * Elementary Processes of Quantum Electrodynamics * Radiative Corrections: Introduction * Radiative Corrections: Some Formal Developments * Final Project: Radiation of Gluon Jets Renormalization * Invitation: Ultraviolet Cutoffs and Critical Fluctuations * Functional Methods * Systematics of Renormalization * Renormalization and Symmetry * The Renormalization Group * Critical Exponents and Scalar Field Theory * Final Project: The Coleman-Weinberg Potential Non-Albelian Gauge Theory * Invitation: The Parton Model of Hadron Structure * Non-Albein Gauge Invariance * Quantization of Non-Abelian Gauge Theories * Quantum Chromodynamics * Operator Products and Effective Vertices * Perturbation Theory Anomalies * Gauge Theories with Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking * Quantization of Spontaneously Broken Gauge Theories * Final Project: Decays of the Higgs Boson * Epilogue: Field Theory at the Frontier