PHYS 3102: Effective Field Theories in Particle Physics

Created on October 01, 2025

2025

Course Information:

Prof. Samuel Homiller (shomiller@pitt.edu, 416 Allen Hall)
Meeting Time: MWF, 11 - 11:50am
Location: 105 Allen Hall
Office Hours: (TBD)

This course is a special topics class on effective field theories and their applications to / manifestations in theoretical particle physics. The goal is to give a broad overview of the conceptual ideas and techniques of effective field theories, which appear in many contexts and in many guises across different scales in particle physics applications. Aside from reviewing some of the universal concepts and most important examples of EFTs in particle physics, I hope you will leave the course with a concrete understanding of why EFTs are so ubiquitous and why they are central to how we think about quantum field theories more generally.

The course is primarily geared towards students interested in theoretical particle physics—in particular, I will assume some knowledge of quantum field theory, and a basic understanding of the Standard Model—but it may also be of interest to students in nuclear theory, condensed matter theory, cosmology or experimental particle physics as well.

Course Outline:

A tentative outline of the course is as follows:

  1. Wilsonian Effective Field Theory

  2. The Standard Model as an EFT

  3. Matching in Top-Down EFTs

  4. Effective Field Theory and Renormalization

  5. Chiral Perturbation Theory

  6. Heavy Quark Effective Theory

  7. Gravity as an Effective Field Theory

  8. Conformal Field Theory

  9. EFTs and the Strong CP Problem

Grading Scheme:

There will not be any traditional exams for this class. The course grade will be based off of homework submissions, which will be due every 1 – 2 weeks. I encourage you to discuss the problems with your peers or discuss them with me in office hours (preferably after you have given them serious thought on your own), but each student is responsible for their own submission, and directly copying solutions from each other will not be allowed.

Textbook and Resources

There will not be a dedicated textbook for the course, but two useful texts are Introduction to Effective Field Theory by Cliff Burgess (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Effective Field Theories by A. Petrov and A. Blechman (World Scientific, 2016). The former is much longer and more pedagogical, with a slightly different (but very useful) perspective. It’s biggest flaw is the choice of metric convention. The latter is shorter, which makes it easier to read, but sometimes harder to parse, but its viewpoint is probably closer to a traditional particle physics one.

Aside from these texts, there are many extremely good reviews on EFTs with a variety of approaches. A sample of these (in no particular order) are:

  • Tim Cohen, “As Scales Become Separated: Lectures on Effective Field Theory”
    (TASI Lectures, 2018) arXiv:1903.03622,
  • Ira Rothstein, “TASI Lectures on Effective Field Theories”
    (TASI Lectures, 2002) arXiv:hep-ph/0308266
  • David B. Kaplan, “Five Lectures on Effective Field Theory”,
    (Lectures at National Nuclear Physics Summer School, 2005) arXiv:nucl-th/0510023
  • Aneesh Manohar, “Introduction to Effective Field Theories”,
    (Les Houches Summer School, 2017) arXiv:1804.05863

Additional references for particular sections of the class will also be shared here on the course website and discussed in class.