# Local symmetry and forces, what book to read?

1. Aug 25, 2009

### aro

I would like some tips about what book I should read if I want to properly understand the relation between local symmetry and forces in gauge theories. And with properly uinderstand I mean a combination of mathematics and intuition/visualization.
On the topic of QFT I have the books by Zee ( ...nutshell) and Peskin&Schroeder (introduction to...) but still I would like something else. For instance I just noticed a book by Vincent Icke, Force of Symmetry, that might be something but I haven't bought it yet. So, who has some experience with good literature on this subject?

2. Aug 25, 2009

### humanino

There are many books. With Zee and Peskin&Schroeder you really have excellent material already. I think you could just concentrate on both.

There are many other possibilities, and choices mostly depend on taste of course. I have not read Vincent Icke, Force of Symmetry. It seems to me similar to K. Huang, Fundamental Forces of Nature, The Story of Gauge Fields (World Scientific, 2007). An excellent classic is S. Coleman, Aspects of Symmetry (Erice lectures) (CUP 1985) but it is becoming old.

3. Aug 27, 2009

### George Jones

Staff Emeritus
This is very true, so I'll add a two more possibilities. First, the mainly non-mathematical book Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics by Bruce A. Schumm,

https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Down-Th...=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221997995&sr=1-2,

and second, the very pedagogical two volume set, Gauge Theories in Particle Physics by Aitchison and Hey,

http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/sho.../search/search.asp!search=gauge$sortBy=1$pn=1

http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/sho.../search/search.asp?search=gauge&sortBy=1&pn=1.

Last edited by a moderator: May 4, 2017