This course is oriented toward the serious elementary particle (high energy), nuclear physics, or astrophysics graduate student who wishes to be either an experimentalist or a theorist. Experiments that either motivated or confirmed the form of the Standard Model will be discussed at appropriate points. We will also discuss the experiments that or have or will in the future search for physics beyond the SM.

We will study the QED, QCD, and weak interactions between the quark  and lepton constituents of matter and deal with the successes and shortcomings of the Standard Model for understanding these interactions and constituents.  The role of symmetries such as C, P , and T in restricting the forms of possible interactions will be studied.  We will do this in the context of gauge interactions and symmetry breaking mechanisms. We will investigate the role of gauge invariance in deciding the form of the various  interactions.

This examination of the Standard Model will naturally lead to electroweak unification and the Higgs sector predictions.  Beyond the Standard model physics will include supersymmetry another extensions that are designed to remedy some of the shortcomings of the SM.

In the course of the semester we will deal at certain points with how to do practical calculations of cross sections and decay rates using the Feynman rules for forming the various orders of perturbation  theory.