I would like each of you to have the opportunity to explore an effective field theory subject on your own and give a short presentation to the rest of the class. The goal of your presentation is to teach it to your fellow students at a level they can understand without having done background reading. The subject of effective field theory is rich and diverse, and far broader than I will be able to cover in one semester. The presentations will create an opportunity for you to learn about additional subjects beyond those in lecture. They will take place on a date near the end of the semester. (If someone has a strong preference they may substitute additional problem sets in place of a presentation.) Below is a list of possible topics. If you prefer you are free to come up with your own. For each of the ones below a reference to start you off is listed. I imagine that taken far enough some of your projects could be turned into research that leads to a publishable paper (though for the class you are only required to report on research from the literature).
Suggested Presentation Topics
The links below are to abstracts of the corresponding scientific papers.
Finite Temperature QCD: Hard Thermal Loop Effective Theory (HTL)
hep-ph/0404164: Andersen, Jens O., and M. Strickland. "Resummation in Hot Field Theories." Annals Physics 317 (2005): 281.
Non-Relativistic General Relativity (NRGR) - A Classical EFT
hep-th/0409156: Goldberger, Walter D., and Ira Z. Rothstein. "An Effective Field Theory of Gravity for Extended Objects." Physical Review Letters D73 (2006): 104029.
hep-th/0511133: Goldberger, Walter D., and Ira Z. Rothstein. "Dissipative Effects in the Worldline Approach to Black Hole Dynamics." Physical Review Letters D73 (2006): 104030.
Unstable Particle Effective Theory [Electroweak Physics for W, Top and QCD]
hep-ph/0312331: M. Beneke, A. P. Chapovsky, A. Signer and G. Zanderighi. "Effective theory approach to unstable particle production." Physical Review Letters 93 (2004): 011602.
hep-ph/0401002: M. Beneke, A. P. Chapovsky, A. Signer and G. Zanderighi. "Effective theory calculation of resonant high-energy scattering." Nuclear Physics B686 (2004): 205.
EFT of a Fermi Surface
hep-ph/9210046: Polchinski, Joseph. "Effective Field Theory and the Fermi Surface." Lectures presented at TASI, 1992.
Chiral EFT for the Weak Interactions with a Heavy Higgs
hep-ph/9301281: Feruglio, Ferruccio. "The Chiral Approach to the Electroweak Interactions." International Journal of Modern Physics A8 (1993): 4937.
Flavor Changing Electroweak Interactions at Low Energy (Beyond what was covered in lecture)
hep-ph/9806471: Buras, Andrzej J. "Weak Hamiltonian, CP Violation and Rare Decays." 1998.
hep-ph/9512380: Buchalla, Gerhard, Andrzej J. Buras, and Markus E. Lautenbacher. "Weak Decays Beyond Leading Logarithms." Reviews of Modern Physics 68 (1996): 1125.
High Density Effective Theory (HDET) for QCD
hep-ph/9905523: Ki Hong, Deog. "Aspects of high density effective theory in QCD." Nuclear Physics B582 (2000): 451.
hep-ph/0307074: Schaefer, Thomas. "Hard Loops, Soft Loops, and High Density Effective Field Theory." Nuclear Physics A728 (2003): 251.
Finite Density Nucleon EFT
nucl-th/9910048: Furnstahl, R. J., James V. Steele, and Negussie Tirfessa. "Perturbative Effective Field Theory at Finite Density." Nuclear Physics A671 (2000): 396.
nucl-th/0010078: Furnstahl, R. J., H. -W. Hammer and Negussie Tirfessa. "Field Redefinitions at Finite Density." Nuclear Physics A689 (2001): 846.
Ferromagnets and Antiferromagnets from EFT
hep-ph/9311264: Leutwyler, H. "Nonrelativistic effective Lagrangians." Physical Review D49 (1994): 3033.
Extra Dimension Models as an EFT, KK States
hep-ph/0404096: Csaki, Csaba. "TASI Lectures on Extra Dimensions and Branes." 2004.
Supersymmetry, MSSM at Low Energies
Hall, Lawrence, Joe Lykken and Steven Weinberg. "Supergravity as the messenger of supersymmetry breaking." Physical Review D27 (1983): 2359-2378.
hep-ph/9406245: Kawamura, Yoshiharu, Hitoshi Murayama, and Masahiro Yamaguchi. "Low-Energy Effective Lagrangian in Unified Theories with Non-Universal Supersymmetry Breaking Terms." Physical Review D51 (1995): 1337.
Non-Relativistic QED and QCD, Bound States
hep-ph/9407339: Bodwin, Geoffrey T., Eric Braaten, and G. Peter Lepage. "Rigorous QCD Analysis of Inclusive Annihilation and Production of Heavy Quarkonium." ERRATUM-IBID D55 (1997): 5853.
hep-ph/9711292: Pineda, A., and J. Soto. "The Lamb Shift in Dimensional Regularization." Physics Letters B420 (1998): 391.
hep-ph/0004018: Manohar, Aneesh V., and Iain W. Stewart. "Logarithms of alpha in QED bound states from the renormalization group." Physical Review Letters 85 (2000): 2248.
Quantum Gravity in Perturbation Theory
't Hooft, G., and Veltman. "One-loop divergencies in the theory of gravitation." Ann Inst Henri Poincare (A) Physique théorique 20 (1974): 69.
Finite Density Nucleon EFT
nucl-th/9910048: Furnstahl, R. J., James V. Steele, and Negussie Tirfessa. "Perturbative Effective Field Theory at Finite Density." Nuclear Physics A671 (2000): 396.
nucl-th/0010078: Furnstahl, R. J., H. -W. Hammer, and Negussie Tirfessa. "Field Redefinitions at Finite Density." Nuclear Physics A689 (2001): 846.
Wess-Zumino Terms in EFT
Large Nc QCD (Effective Fields for Counting Nc's)
hep-ph/9802419: Manohar, Aneesh V. "Large N QCD." 1998.
Partially Quenched Chiral Perturbation Theory
hep-lat/0108003: Sharpe, Stephen, and Noam Shoresh. "Partially quenched chiral perturbation theory without $\Phi_0$." Physical Review D64 (2001): 114510.
hep-lat/9306005: Bernard, Claude, and Maarten Golterman. "Partially Quenched Gauge Theories and a Application to Staggered Fermions." Physical Review D49 (1994): 486.
EFT for Quasi-Classical Plasmas
physics/9911055: Brown, Lowell S., and Laurence G. Yaffe. "Effective Field Theory for Highly Ionized Plasmas." Physics Reports 340 (2001): 1.
EFT for Black Holes and the Cosmological Constant
hep-th/9803132: Cohen, Andrew G., David B. Kaplan, and Ann E. Nelson. "Effective Field Theory, Black Holes, and the Cosmological Constant." Physical Review Letters 82 (1999): 4971.
Relativistic Superfluid EFT
hep-ph/0204199: Son, D. T. "Low-Energy Quantum Effective Action for Relativistic Superfluids." 2002.
A Lattice QCD EFT: Finite Lattice Spacing
hep-lat/9611010: Alford, M., T. R. Klassen, and G. P. Lepage. "Improving Lattice Quark Actions." Nuclear Physics B496 (1997): 377-407.
hep-lat/0506036: Lepage, G. Peter. "Lattice QCD for Novices." Proceedings of HUGS 98. Edited by J. L. Goity. New York, NY: World Scientific, 2000.
hep-lat/9802029: Lüscher, Martin. "Advanced Lattice QCD." Lectures given at the Les Houches Summer School 'Probing the Standard Model of Particle Interactions', July 28-September 5, 1997.
A Lattice QCD EFT -- Finite Volume or Twisted Mass
The instructor would choose appropriate references.
A continuation of any topic discussed in lecture not already mentioned above (HQET, NRQCD, SCET, Chiral perturbation theory for matter fields, electroweak Hamiltonian, NN effective theory, NRQCD, ...). A proposed topic must go beyond what we discuss in lecture.
A topic of your choosing (with instructor's approval). I'm well aware that this list is far from complete and some of you will surely come up with a topic you find more interesting than those I have listed. For example I didn't mention any EFT topics from beyond the standard model besides the MSSM and extra dimension models.
Presentation Topics
Students during the Spring 2006 term submitted papers on the following topics:
- Mode Factorization in EFT's
- EFT in Lattice QCD
- Causality and Locality in EFT
- Quantum Gravity as an EFT
- Non-Relativistic Gravity as a Field Theory
- High Density Effective Theory
- EFT for Plasmas
- MSSM and Low Energy SUSY in EFT