Good Books on QFT: Suggestions & Reviews

[JamesOrland]

Hello. I'd like to know of good suggestions of books on QFT. I have a somewhat firm grasp on non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics, and already know of some good books about it, so I'd like to understand some Quantum Field Theory if at all possible.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions :)

 

[dipstik]

we used sakurai for our introductory course, but there might be something that feynmann worked on that will give you better intuition

 

[atyy]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/019922725X/?tag=pfamazon01-20 gives quantum field theory from a condensed matter perspective, where "second quantization" is a method of writing elementary quantum mechanics of many identical particles in a form which is equivalent to non-relativistic QFT.

http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~mark/qft.html seems pretty friendly to me for relativistic QFT.

 

[Bill_K]

Peskin and Schroeder is widely used, and highly recommended.

My own advice - never learn a subject from just one book! Read two books in parallel, and play them off against one another, word by word. This prevents you from becoming tied to a single point of view. Plus the thought involved in bringing two viewpoints into harmony makes you more of an active participant.

 

[JamesOrland]

Certainly, which is why I asked for books not book ^^ I'm going to try to read as many of them as I can. When I have the time, that is. Probably sometime around next semester or year. Still, would love to hear more suggestions.

 

[Hypersphere]

Peskin and Schroeder does indeed contain a lot of good material, but I think parts of it are utterly unreadable (the section on the quantization of the electron field is one example). Srednicki, which atyy mentioned, is a nice book/supplement.

Another really useful resource is http://www.quantumfieldtheory.info/ I haven't read the associated book yet, but I found many of his PDFs helpful when I was learning QFT.

 

[smodak]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1842652494/?tag=pfamazon01-20

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691140340/?tag=pfamazon01-20

I purchased both these books but didn't have a chance to read either yet. From a cursory look the first looks interesting and I, myself, would probably start with that one.

I have also heard good things about
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1466513179/?tag=pfamazon01-20
and
https://www.amazon.com/dp/052167056X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[Daverz]

I think Aitchison & Hey is the best introduction:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1466512997/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Many of the other books are too detailed for a first pass.

 

[Daverz]

I just noticed this one on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984513922/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[DrDu]

I like QFT in a nutshell, by Zee. It is not a very systematic presentation but it is full of utterly needed intuition. I also liked that it is not restricted to relativistic QFT but has many examples from solid state physics, too. I think the latter point being especially important as you see which constructions are peculiar to relativistic field theories and what are their limitations in more general settings.

 

[JamesOrland]

Thank you all very much for your replies! If there's any more input, I'd love to hear it. I wrote down all the books you suggested and will be doing my research when I have the time for that ^^

 

[VantagePoint72]

There is a freely available set of (very good) lecture notes here. There is even a set of video lectures that follow the notes, so you can go through them together as if you were taking an intro QFT class. Doing the accompanying exercise sheets would also be highly recommended as you go along. David Tong is an excellent lecturer, and the notes (plus videos if you so choose) are a nice introduction to the canonical quantization approach. They cover the content of Peskin and Schroeder chapters 1-5, though in a slightly different order and emphasis. The book would be a nice supplement, as well as letting you continue on from where Tong leaves off.