Srednicki’s Quantum Field Theory
There are lots of books on Quantum Field Theory out there. The dominant book nowadays is Peskin’s An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory. However, I did not like the books out in the market because of the view on the subject felt rather illogical. There are so much material in QFT to cover, and I never seen a book that covered it in a coherent way.
I sometimes call QFT as “application of Fourier analysis on Fock space” for a joke, to emphasize that the mathematical tools are not hard to master, but getting a structured view on the subject turns out not to be easy at all. Srednicki has a comment on this in his preface:
Quantum field theory has the repuatation of being a subject that is hard to learn. The problem, I [Srednicki] think, is not so much that its basic ingredients ar unusually diffcult to master [...], but rather that there are a lot of these ingredients. Some are fundamental, but many are just technical aspects of an unfamiliar form of perturbation theory.
Yes, indeed I found myself lost in these technical details. Usually when I get to this point I look into my favorite book on the subject – Quantum Field Theory for Mathematicians by Ticciati. To get the conceptual ideas of the subject I read Zee’s Quantum Field Theory. And if all these approaches fail, I look into Peskin’s book.
Unfortunately, today, my strategy did not work on renormalization and renormalization group, and I was quite doomed in the library. I wanted a renormalization-built-in approach on the subject. Frustrated by my defeat on the material, I decided to take a break and read my email. As I logged in, I noticed that I had recieved an email from the library saying that the book I ordered (Srednicki’s book) has arrived. I picked up the book and started to read. And wow! I never was touched by a book on QFT before like today! It had all the material I wanted in just the perfect approach!
A good book for starting on renormalization is ‘Renormalization Methods: A Guide for Beginners’ by McComb and published by Oxford University Press.
It is a very gentle introduction and would take some time to read – probably more time than a part III student has (and probably too ‘gentle’ for part III students as well!). But it may be good summer reading for other students preparing to learn QFT in the new academic year.
I’m glad you find the book helpful. Anticipating the eventual need for renormalization early on in the presentation was one of my key goals. I’m not familiar with the book by McComb, but it looks like it may have a similar philosophy.