Book on Quantum Field Theory for PhD

[Luca_Mantani]

Hi all.
I am looking for a book in Quantum Field Theory, not for the first read. I have already studied it for university purpose, but now i would like to study the subject again from a book to cover holes and have a deeper understanding before starting a possible PhD.
I heard about Srednicki and Schwartz books and i was thinking about one of them. What do you think is the more appropriate?
Feel also free to suggest other books if you think there are better options.

Thanks in advance,
Luca

 

[ShayanJ]

I think https://www.amazon.com/dp/0201360799/?tag=pfamazon01-20 will serve you well.

 

[dextercioby]

If you do want to get the truth behind this powerful theory without getting all the mathematical gore, then the 3 volumes of S. Weinberg's book should be more than helpful.

 

[MrRobotoToo]

Ticciati's 'Quantum Field Theory for Mathematicians' is quite good: https://goo.gl/NzA3Md . Despite its title, it's an excellent option for someone working towards a PhD in physics.

 

[vanhees71]

Yes, Weinberg's books are the right thing at this stage. He tells without much ado "why QFT is the way it is", and he doesn't only promise it in the preface but really does it!

 

[Luca_Mantani]

So you say Srednicki and Schwartz are not ideal?

 

[snatchingthepi]

A combination like Klauber and Weinberg might be useful.

 

[nrqed]

A combination like Klauber and Weinberg might be useful.

It is a bit confusing to me because you say that you do not want a "first read" but Srednicki is an introductory text on QFT, so it is hard to tell what the level you want, precisely. Are you at ease with basic canonical quantization? With basic path integrals? Are you at ease with tree level processes? What about one loop calculations?

 

[vanhees71]

So you say Srednicki and Schwartz are not ideal?

I don't like Srednicki too much, because the $\phi^3$ theory doesn't make sense. Schwartz is excellent. I recommend it as a first read before Weinberg.

 

[Luca_Mantani]

It is a bit confusing to me because you say that you do not want a "first read" but Srednicki is an introductory text on QFT, so it is hard to tell what the level you want, precisely. Are you at ease with basic canonical quantization? With basic path integrals? Are you at ease with tree level processes? What about one loop calculations?

Yes, i already studied all of them. I would like something that can reinforce the notions i already know and fill the gaps (for example i don't know much about anomalies, i would like to study better renormalization and other stuff). I would also like to see applications and example.
So you think the first 2 Weinberg fit my needs the best?

 

[nrqed]

Yes, i already studied all of them. I would like something that can reinforce the notions i already know and fill the gaps (for example i don't know much about anomalies, i would like to study better renormalization and other stuff). I would also like to see applications and example.
So you think the first 2 Weinberg fit my needs the best?

Weinberg's books are good, yes, although not personal favorites. I would suggest Quantum Field Theory: A Modern Perspective by Nair. Not very well-known but excellent in my opinion.

 

[atyy]

Srednicki has a very good chapter on effective field theory and the renormalization group. Nair and Schwartz too - I have never quite understood Weinberg's exposition on it, although he was one of the proponents of it after Wilson.

 

[vanhees71]

Yes, I must admit that the chapter on RG is a bit weak in Weinberg, which is surprising since he wrote very important seminal papers on it.

On the other hand he gives the first-principle derivations in a very clear way. Why I don't think that it's a good introductory book but rather for deepening the understanding for someone who has already some grip of QFT is that he treats almost always the very general case, which is of course more complicated than to treat the special cases usually needed for the understanding of the Standard Model. E.g., he gives a full treatment of the Poincare-group representations for particles of arbitrary spin (of course also a set of famous papers by Weinberg) including spin-statistics and CPT theorem. For the beginner it's sufficient to know the basics, i.e., the special case of scalar, Dirac-fermion, and spin-1 fields (the latter including the massless case). However, to really understand why QFT is the way it is the in-depth treatment of the irreps. of the Poincare group is very illuminating.

I don't know the book by Nair. What's its advantages compared to, e.g., Schwartz?

BTW: Another book that was very helpful for me to learn QFT when I was a diploma student is Bailin, Love, Gauge Theories. It's a path-integral-only approach with a very witty derivation of the LSZ-reduction formalism via a generating functional and without operators, i.e., using only path integrals.

 

[dextercioby]

I like the comment by vanhees on Bailin & Love for its amazing value in teaching QFT completely operator free. My course in uni was based on this book.

 

[ShayanJ]

One good thing about Hatfield's book is that he treats QFT in Schrodinger representation. I don't know any other author who does that. But I also like the approach of Bailin and Love and like to read that book one day!

 

[nrqed]

One good thing about Hatfield's book is that he treats QFT in Schrodinger representation. I don't know any other author who does that. But I also like the approach of Bailin and Love and like to read that book one day!

I also like very much Hatfield's book. A lot of books on QFT feel like they pretty much repeat the same things in the same way. Hatfield truly makes an effort to present things in his own way and his approach is interesting and, I found, very useful.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

Take them all... :-D

Repetition is not a bad thing, in the end it sinks in.

 

[vanhees71]

From my own experience I can say that this "sinking in" takes a long time when it comes to QFT, but it's fun to struggle with it.