The Standard Model

While in my final year of undergraduate study I researched the symmetries behind the Standard Model of Particle Physics under the supervision of Dr Madalena Lemos. The project as a whole stemmed from her proposal to unify symmetries and particles. You might think that this would be a very particle physics-heavy project (and it was!), but underneath the physics lies some very beautiful maths in the form of group theory.

I chose this project because it has been a long curiosity of mine to figure what the universe is made from and how everything interacts with each other at a fundamental level. Once I found out that beneath all of particle physics is nothing but abstract algebra, I was hooked. I am eternally grateful for Dr Andreas Braun who introduced me to this concept during his course on the Geometry of Mathematical Physics.

My dissertation will be published here as a series of lecture notes in due course. It should be understood by an undergraduate with a passion for learning about quantum field theory and a background knowledge of introductory group theory, Lagrangian mechanics and quantum mechanics.

PDFs

Click here for a PDF of the dissertation.

Click here for a PDF of a poster I made about spontaneous symmetry breaking.