Lattice QCD I (Wintersemester 2021 / 2022)

General information:

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Christoph Lehner
4 hours lecture + 2 hours exercises (+ 2 hours computer lab)
Lectures: Monday / Friday 10:00 - 12:00 c.t.
First lecture on 18.10. at 10:15 using Zoom.
Computer Lab: Tuesday 10:00 - 12:00 c.t. in hybrid form (Zoom & seminar room 4.1.12)
Exercises: Thursday 10:00 - 12:00 c.t. (Zoom)
Zoom coordinates can be found from within the university network here. Please use the UR VPN service if you plan to access this off-site. If you have trouble, send me an email.
Language: English
We will use GPT for the numerical problems.
Please register here for the exercises.
We use the phyhub server for the lecture. If matplotlib is missing for you, you can install it with
```
!pip install --user matplotlib
```
and then restart your kernel.
Video recordings of the lectures can be found here.

Content:

Path integral quantization
Scalar field theory on the lattice
Monte Carlo methods
Gauge theories
Strong coupling expansion
Continuum limit and phase transitions
Fermions on the lattice
Chiral symmetry on the lattice
Hybrid Monte Carlo
Hadron spectroscopy

Problem sets:

You can find the problem sets in the respective chapters of the lecture, linked below. Each week after the Friday lecture, all homework assignments that were already covered in the lecture need to be prepared for next Thursday. In the exercise group meeting, you then mark, which of the exercises you have prepared and you may be asked to present your solution. If you mark less than 50 per cent of all problems, you will need to pass a brief oral examination to be admitted to the exam at the end of the lecture.

Chapters:

Chapter 1: path integral formulation of quantum mechanics (Jupyter Notebook, PDF)
Chapter 2: Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 09.11. 10:14)
Chapter 3: statistics of continous variables (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 07.11. 21:00)
Chapter 4: scalar field theory on a lattice (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 02.12. 10:45)
Chapter 5: symmetries of fundamental field theories (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 21.11. 18:30)
Chapter 6: gauge theories on a lattice (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 28.11. 16:30)
Chapter 7: static quark potential and spectrum of pure QCD (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 03.12. 10:11)
Chapter 8: strong coupling expansion (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 05.12. 21:11)
Chapter 9: continuum limit and phase transitions (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 13.12. 10:14)
Chapter 10: fermions on a lattice (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 19.12. 18:04)
Chapter 11: symmetries of the Wilson action (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 10.01. 09:35)
Chapter 12: chiral symmetry on a lattice (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 24.01. 10:00)
Chapter 13: Hybrid Monte Carlo (HMC) (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 28.01. 09:46)
Chapter 14: Hadron spectroscopy (Jupyter Notebook, PDF, last update 04.02. 09:56)

Literature:

Gattringer, Lang: Quantum Chromodynamics on the Lattice
Montvay, Muenster: Quantum fields on a lattice
Rothe: Lattice Gauge Theories an Introduction
Lepage: Lattice QCD for novices
Lüscher: Computational Strategies in Lattice QCD
2019 whitepapers on interesting research questions: