If only this book were available when I was in CalTech Phd program

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	• Quantum Field Theory Mark Srednicki Cambridge University Press, 2007 - 664 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An excellent piece of scientific writing.

Quantum Field Theory by Mark Srednicki is a true gem. He posts a (beta)pdf of the text on his website so you can see for yourself. However, In the words of John Baez: "nothing beats sitting in a cafe with a friend, notebooks open, and working together on a regular basis." So get the book, work through the problems, and (as much as possible) discuss them with a buddy over coffee. Cheers to good physics.

A good way to learn field theory

This is a useful book. For the first section he is mostly doing phi^3
theory in 6 dimensions, which is unrealistic but good because he can
touch on all the crucial concepts like renormalization, and asymptotic
freedom in this simple context, making them as understandable as possible.
He never sweeps subtleties under the rug, so you really learn how they
arise. And he is careful with factors of i and 2 etc, so you have
confidence that there is really a coherent story to follow, and it is
worth your time to work things out for yourself. (Lots of misprints,
but a well-maintained web page lists them.)

Things I found less convenient:

1) There is only one level of structure: short chapters. There are no
sub-sections in chapters to make the logic clearer. And he refuses to
ever cite any equation from another chapter, so either he repeats
equations unnecessarily, or just cites a whole chapter, leaving you to
search it for the relevant equation. And so there is no single place
where all the crucial results are collected. Each time you need a
basic formula you have to search through the book for it.

2) Charged scalar fields are important as a precursor to fermions
but are only studied in the problems. In phi^3 the field is neutral.

3) Symmetry factors are never properly explained. There is a detailed
discussion on real-space Feynman diagrams, but then suddenly he
switches to momentum space, and we never learn how to do symmetry
factors for an arbitrary momentum-space diagram.

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If only this book were available when I was in CalTech Phd program

I was at Caltech 1984-86 in Phd. theoretical physics program and they were still using Bjorken & Drell and then Ramond for the final quarter - I fell behind when we hit chapter 8 renormalization never caught up and to my regret dropped out and became a professional high limit poker player. Every few years I would buy another QFT text - I tried them all (Peskin & Schroeder, Ryder, kaku, Weinberg, Itzykson & Zuber, Hatfield, Zee)- learn a little but still never felt confortable with the subject. Then I discovered Prof. Srednicki's book on the internet and realized this is the book I have been waiting for. The subject is presented logically and coherently from a theorist point of view.

Renormalization, path integrals etc. are all treated from the beginning with a toy phi-cubed theory. What other field theory book actually shows you the double taylor expansion as in 9.11 page 60 and then clearly explains all the symmetry factors and numerical factors that lead to the final feynman diagrams.

The best part of the book is the problems - they are neither trivial nor research projects - so far I have worked almost every problem in part 1 (scalar fields)- and they are all instructive and doable. I particularly liked problem 10.5 on field redefinition - when you solve this one you know you understand the material on feynman diagrams and scattering amplitudes.

The treatment of scalar fields followed by spinor fields and then gauge fields enables one to learn the subject and gain confidence without overwhelming you with all the technical details and indices at once.

The only other book that compares with this one are Weinberg's which I would recommend tackling after Srednicki. I would also recommend Zee's nutshell book for those like myself who read QFT books for fun.

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Best Introduction to QFT that I have found

Background: I used this book in an introductory graduate course in QFT at Brown University, but I had read through a couple of other QFT texts before taking this course.

The book is split into three main sections: 1) scalar fields 2) spinor fields and 3)vector fields. By developing QFT exclusively for scalar fields in the first section, Srednicki is able to separate the difficult parts of field theory from the complications and technicalities of spinor algebra, which was very helpful for me.
Also, this approach allows the author to discuss some subtle aspects of quantum field theory much earlier on than usual (for example: effective field theories, Wilsonian renormalization, the renormalization group, spontaneous symmetry breaking, etc...). In particular, the book contains the best introduction to renormalization that I have seen. It takes a very modern standpoint, and was able to clear up many of my conceptual issues with the topic.
There are a couple of other features/issues that the potential reader should probably be aware of:
1) While the book introduces canonical quantization, it develops most of the material through the path integral formulation
2) Srednicki develops spinor algebra using two-component Weyl spinors, which in my opinion is more elegant and useful for studying SUSY (but which may bother those who are used to the 4-component Dirac notation)
3) The material is presentated through a large number of short (usually 3-4 page) chapters, which allows the author to cover a lot, but not always in great detail. Therefore (as with any QFT text), I would recommend supplementing the sections of this book with other texts (personally, I found Srednicki's informal approach complemented Weinberg's texts well)

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Good.

I received the product in time and in good condition (brand new). I had no problems whatsoever.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Quantum field theory is the basic mathematical framework that is used to describe elementary particles. This textbook provides a complete and essential introduction to the subject. Assuming only an undergraduate knowledge of quantum mechanics and special relativity, this book is ideal for graduate students beginning the study of elementary particles. The step-by-step presentation begins with basic concepts illustrated by simple examples, and proceeds through historically important results to thorough treatments of modern topics such as the renormalization group, spinor-helicity methods for quark and gluon scattering, magnetic monopoles, instantons, supersymmetry, and the unification of forces. The book is written in a modular format, with each chapter as self-contained as possible, and with the necessary prerequisite material clearly identified. It is based on a year-long course given by the author and contains extensive problems, with password protected solutions available to lecturers at www.cambridge.org/9780521864497.

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