Recent content by GreyBadger

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    What does a QCD background refer to?

    In experimental terms, it's a bit of a bastardised term (CMS publication guidelines are explicit in not allowing it, along with other phrases such as 'more statistics' - we use these colloquially, but they shouldn't be in our published work). What it generally refers to are processes which lead...
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    On Feynman diagrams, why do antiparticles have their arrows pointing backwards

    It's purely a matter of convention, but the idea is that fermion lines are continuous (see comments above). Now, if you want to think of it in terms of 'backwards in time' terms, then the reason is that applying the two operators C and P (Charge and Parity, CP) yields an antiparticle from a...
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    What particles can the Z boson couple to in the standard model?

    Hmm, in what limit? See, I would think of the neutron as made of udd (in valence terms), and therefore the photon 'coupling' to the neutron would actually be interacting with one of the constituent quarks. Of course, one could write a Fermi-like term for the interaction, but that's kind of cheating.
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    Integrating by parts in path integral (Zee)

    Aha yes. Thank you both.
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    3rd order derivatives in the lagrangian

    P.17 of Zee states this is because 'we don't know how to quantize actions with more than two time derivatives'. Why this is mathematically I do not know though (and was wondering the same thing myself...).
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    Integrating by parts in path integral (Zee)

    Hi all, I have an exceptionally basic question, taken from P21 of Zee. Eq. 14 is Z=\int D\psi e^{i\int d^4x(\frac{1}{2}[(\partial\psi )^2-m^2\psi^2] + J\psi)} The statement is then made that 'Integrating by parts under the \int d^4x' leads to Eq. 15: Z=\int D\psi e^{i\int...
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    Proving lorentz invariance of Dirac bilinears

    I could well have got my notes confused... I have a copy of P&S on my desk, so will have a look when I'm in work (Can't find a preview on Google Books). Cheers!
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    Proving lorentz invariance of Dirac bilinears

    I'm trying to work through the proof of the Lorentz invariance of the Dirac bilinears. As an example, the simplest: \bar{\psi}^\prime\psi^\prime = \psi^{\prime\dagger}\gamma_0\psi^\prime = \psi^{\dagger}S^\dagger\gamma_0 S\psi = \psi^{\dagger}\gamma_0\gamma_0S^\dagger\gamma_0 S\psi =...
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    Apparently, Higgs bosons created in an alternative future can alter the present.

    I was at a conference recently, talking with a few theorists. What they pointed out to me is that we have a redundancy in our gauge theories - We have unmeasurable phases (i.e. the spacetime localised SU(N) parameters), and arbitrary gauge choices. One doesn't need, in general, a gauge structure...
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    Understanding Parton Shower: An Introduction to QCD Processes on Colliders

    Yep, that's pretty spot on. Although, the parton shower doesn't give you get production probability - it just tells you how individual strong objects (quarks + gluons) will evolve. The Leading Log approximation isn't very good at hard (i.e. high momentum, high angle w.r.t. the emitting particle)...
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    Could GUT be wrong (i.e unrealized in nature)?

    Of course GUT could be the wrong idea. Just like the Higgs mechanism could be. Just like the N different extra dimensional models may be. Just like SUSY may be. Just like... We are living in a theory dominated world right now. Let's hope the LHC sheds the light on where to go next with the...
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    Question concerning curl for finding a conservative force field

    You should specify what f, g and h are. It does look like you're using the fact that you can jointly express the two statements as \nabla\times\nabla\phi = \mathrm{det}\begin{pmatrix}\hat{\mathbf{i}} && \hat{\mathbf{j}} && \hat{\mathbf{k}}\\\delta_x && \delta_y && \delta_z\\ \delta_x\phi &&...
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    Understanding Parton Shower: An Introduction to QCD Processes on Colliders

    It is fairly easy to write process matrix elements at leading order (LO). Recently, it has become fairly standard to have next-to-leading order QCD (NLO), and for some processes NNLO and above, matrix elements. What do these tell us? Well, for example in the production of a Z boson, the LO...
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    Infinite cross section in scattering

    Sorry, you're correct. The chapter I'm thinking of is talking about controlling IR divergences in calculations to one loop.
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    Infinite cross section in scattering

    There's a nice discussion of this in Srednicki, Chapter 26: Infrared divergences. Indeed, as said above, the problem is due to the calculation being performed in the m\to 0 limit, and higher order corrections are needed to control this. What is more formidable, calculating loop corrections or...
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