Wolfgang Hollik Knihy

Focusing on the foundational aspects of relativistic quantum field theory, this book is designed for third-year physics students and beginning graduate students. It covers essential topics such as perturbation theory, Feynman graphs, and both Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theories, with applications to Quantum Electrodynamics (QED), Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), and the electroweak Standard Model. Additionally, it explores the phenomenology of W, Z, and Higgs bosons, incorporating recent experimental results and precision tests to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current status of particle physics.

The book explores the impact of quantum corrections on neutrino masses and mixings, proposing a method to generate flavor mixing independently of traditional models. It introduces a new class of vacua with a minimum in the standard Higgs direction, suggesting a charge and color breaking global minimum that enhances existing tree-level bounds. Additionally, it integrates vacuum stability within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) and discusses the right-handed neutrino extension, highlighting how the supersymmetric seesaw mechanism maintains stability across scales.

This review gives a brief discussion of the structure of the Standard Model and its quantum corrections for testing the electroweak theory at current and future colliders. The predictions for the vector boson masses, neutrino scattering cross sections, and the Z resonance observables such as the width of the Z resonance, partial widths, effective neutral current coupling constants and mixing angles at the Z peak, are presented. Recent experimental data and their implications for the present status of the Standard Model are compared. Finally, the question of how virtual new physics can influence the predictions for the precision observables and the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) as a special example of particular theoretical interest are discussed.