Is Zuber's Quantum Field Theory textbook any good?

[Phylosopher]

Hi,

I have been studying Quantum Field Theory this semester! It seems that Shwartz and Peskin are the most popular choices when it comes to studying QFT. But apparently my professor have another "old" preference.

He strongly suggested that we learn QFT from Zuber's book. I have looked at the book, to be honest it seems more detailed than Shwartz, at least. But the notation is a bit different, let alone that the book is quite OLD. But again, you have some really old textbooks that are still being used today like Quarks and Leptons by Martin; so I don't think this is a necessarly bad thing in itself.

For those who read Zuber's textbook; is it really any better than Shwartz and Peskin. Or maybe Peskin is the safest choice for the long term?

Update: I am referring to Itzykson and Zuber

 

[vanhees71]

Do you mean Itzykson+Zuber? That's an excellent book too. It's not too old either. The Standard Model was discovered in its final form roughly around 1973 (the final piece was the discovery of asymptotic freedom of QCD). So to learn the QFT formalism for the Standard Model any textbook that is not older than that is not too old for that purpose.

If you want a very short one, one of my favorites is

J. C. Taylor, Gauge Theories of Weak Interactions, Cambridge University Press (1976).

Another good source is even older:

E. Abers and B. Lee, Gauge Theories, Phys. Rept. 9, 1 (1973),
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0370-1573(73)90027-6.

I'd say, any book written after 1971, when the renormalizability of non-Abelian gauge theories including those with "hidden gauge symmetry" (Higgs mechanism) by 't Hooft and Veltman are fine in principle.

 

[JD_PM]

Peskin & Schroeder is a really good book; it's true that first versions of it contained many typos and mistakes but there are online sources dealing with the errata (see below link).

I'd suggest you follow Tong's lecture notes on QFT (which are based on Peskin & Schroeder's book). You can study them together with his lectures available on YouTube.

If you are a truly beginner I'd suggest https://ia800108.us.archive.org/32/items/FranzMandlGrahamShawQuantumFieldTheoryWiley2010/Franz%20Mandl%2C%20Graham%20Shaw-Quantum%20Field%20Theory-Wiley%20%282010%29.pdf, which is enlightening and enjoyable.