PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS, AST/PHY 597A, 
Peter Meszaros
Spring 2012

Hours: TU-TR, 10:45-12:00,  541 Davey

Recommended text: Particle Astrophysics, Perkins, Oxford U. Press
(this text will not be followed in any detail; class notes will 
be made available in ANGEL).

Pre-requisites: 
It is expected that students have a reasonable exposure to 
non-relativistic quantum mechanics and to special relativity.

Class requirements (3 credits):
1) write a 30+ page term paper, topic to be assigned by instructor.
2) There are no midterms or homework; however, attendance is expected
to at least 90% of the classes, and 5 unjustified absences will result 
in a grade no higher than B.  Otherwise, the grade will be based 2/3 
on the final paper and 1/3 on class attendance/participation.


SYLLABUS

1) Overview of high energy astrophysics and cosmology topics
2) Particle and nuclear physics basics; 1930-1950 type of
nuclear phenomenology; nuclear models, liquid drop, Fermi gas,
shell model; stability of nuclei; radiaoactivity, nuclear 
fission and fusion; reactors, the Sun; four-fermion interactions, 
order of mag. estimates of cross sections; zoology of leptons, 
fermions and exchange bosons; quark structure of particles; 
various astrophysical contexts.
3) Brief review of Dirac equation and spinors
4) Interactions. Feynman graphs, exchange of massless and
massive bosons, propagator and rates/cross section estimates.
EM, weak, strong processes (gravit. procs: sketch)
5) Symmetries: continuous and discrete. C,P,T. Broken symmetries.
P violation, CP violation, CPT, supersymmetry (very sketchy).
6) Gauge fields, global and local phase transformations, rot. and
groups, isotopic spin and Yang-Mills, symm. breaking and mass
generation. QED, U(1), SU(2), spont. summ. breaking, Higgs mech.,
electroweaktheory (sketchy).
7) Neutrino interactions, cross sections, 2-flavor vacuum oscill.,
oscill. in matter; solar and atmospheric nu experiments, conclusions
for neutrino mass and beyond-standard-model (BSM).
8)  QCD, BSM and GUTs; vacuum polarization, one-gluon exchange
cross sections, jets. lepton-nucleon scattering, deep inelastic,
neutrino scattering; renormalizatiin, running couplings; Higgs
bosonsearches; GUTs, SUSY GUTs (sketchy)
9) Cosmology and dark matter. Early universe dynamics and thermo-
dynamics. Equilibrium and departure from it. Early univ. eras.
Entropy, decoupling of species. Basic WIMP models, freeze-out
density, relation to its mass and coupling constant. DM direct
and indirect searches. Axions. Dark energy
10) Cosmic rays, 1E9-1E15 eV range. Propagation in the galaxy,
leaky box, diffusioin. Acceleration, Fermi mechanisms; supernova
acceleration. Diffusion-loss equation, spectral calculations
11) UHE cosmic rays, 1E15-1E20 eV; energy losses in a photon field;
photo-pion, photo-pair. Spectru. Angular spread and time delay in
propagation; hadronic cross sectinos, ionization and radiation
losses; cascades and their development; Xmax and compositin dependence
12) UHE astrophysical sources. Fluid dynamics, shocks, SNR expansion;
relatvistic fluids and shocks, jets. Radiation mechanisms, synchrotron,
IC, breamsstrahlung, pi-0 decay; SNR, Gamma-ray bursts and AGNs; basic
CR acceleration in these soubces, expected spectra and fluxes of CRs.
UHE neutrinos from same. AGN and SNR TeV gamma-ray observatins
and interpretation
13) Interplay between UHECR, UHENU and VHE gamma fluxes in various
sources; observational review and constraints therefrom; GZK CR and
problems; Auger observations. Cosmogenic neutrinos and searches.
14) Gravitational waves and gravitational astrophysics (if time left)