Course Syllabus

PHYS 7650 – Quantum Field Theory II (Spring Semester 2026)

this syllabus is a live document: [last edit 12/22/25]

Class Information:

Instructor: Gustavo Marques-Tavares (he/him) 

Email: g.marques@utah.edu

Phone Number: 801-581-6901 (office number, not sure if it works) 

Lectures: Tue & Thurs, 2:00pm – 3:20pm

Classroom: ST E1133

Office Hours: Right after class or by appointment

Office Location: LSSB W2256

Useful books:

• [primary text] Mark Srednicki, Quantum Field Theory -- online version available here
• M. Peskin and D. Schroeder, An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory
• M. Schwartz, Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model
• David Tong's lecture notes: Quantum Field Theory and Statistical Field Theory

Course outcomes and objectives:

Representations of Lorentz group; Quantizing free spin 1/2 and spin 1 fields; Path integrals for fermions; Yukawa theory; Quantum electrodynamics, including renormalization and the beta function; Ward identities; Advanced topics depending on interest and time availability

Course requirements and evaluation:

One of the most important aspects of learning the material will be working on the homework on a timely fashion. There will be problem sets approximately every other week, and although students are encouraged to work together they should write their own solutions to the problems. Everyone is entitled to one automatic one week extension for one homework, which should be communicated to the instructor via canvas message. If you need an extension beyond that, you must contact the instructor before the deadline.

There will be no exam for this class, just a final presentation. Each student in consultation with the instructor will pick an advanced topic related to the material covered during the semester, learn it independently and prepare a 30min presentation explaining the core concept of the chosen topic for the class at the end of the semester.

Grading scale:

Grades will be computed using the average homework score (80%) and the final presentation (20%), and converted to a letter using the thresholds in the table below:

University mandatory policies: 

The university mandatory policies can be found on this link.