Final Project
For the final project, you will explore an effective field theory subject on your own and create a short presentation to be peer graded. The goal of your presentation is to teach your topic to your fellow students at a level they can understand without having done background reading. The subject of effective field theory is rich and diverse, and far broader than we will be able to cover in one semester. The presentations will create an opportunity for you to learn about additional subjects beyond those in lecture.
Each talk will be 30 minutes long, and presented on the board or with slides.
You can click on any of the headers below for more information.
The codes in the list below are used to indicate your topic area. Sometimes the references listed are the original papers and sometimes they are review articles. Note that new topic ideas will be added to this list by the end of February. When consulting these references you should also consider looking at references they cite or which cite them.
Code |
Topics |
References |
| HTL | Finite Temperature QCD: Hard Thermal Loop Effective Theory (HTL) | Jens O. Andersen and Michael Strickland, "Resummation in Hot Field Theories", Annals of Physics, 317: 281-353 (2005). |
| NRG | Non-Relativistic General Relativity (NRGR) [a classical EFT] |
Walter D. Goldberger, Les Houches Lectures (2007). Rafael Porto, The Effective Field Theorist's Approach to Gravitational Dynamics ", Phys.Rept. 633 (2016) 1-104. Walter D. Goldberger and Ira Z. Rothstein, "An Effective Field Theory of Gravity for Extended Objects", Physical Review Letters D73 (2006): 104029; "Dissipative Effects in the Worldline Approach to Black Hole Dynamics", Physical Review D73: 104030(2006). |
| ECF | EFT for Cosmological Fluids/Large Scale Structure |
John Joseph M. Carrasco, Mark P. Hertzberg, Leonardo Senatore, "The Effective Field Theory of Cosmological Large Scale Structures." JHEP 9:82 (2012). Guillermo Ballesteros and Brando Bellazzini. "Effective Perfect Fluids in Cosmology." JCAP 1304: 001 (2013) . Rafael A. Porto, Leonardo Senatore, Matias Zaldarriago, "The Lagrangian-space Effective Field Theory of Large Scale Structures." JCAP 1405: 022 (2014). |
| PFL | EFT for Perfect Fluids | S.Dubovsky, L.Hui, A.Nicolis, D.T. Son, Effective field theory for hydrodynamics: thermodynamics, and the derivative expansion." Phys.Rev.D85: 085029 (2012). |
| RSE | Relativistic Superfluid EFT | Dam T. Son, "Low-Energy Quantum Effective Action for Relativistic Superfluids." (2002). |
| VHY | EFT for Viscous Fluids | M.Crossley, P.Glorioso, H.Liu, "Effective field theory of dissipative fluids." (2015). |
| ETI | Effective Field Theory for Inflation |
C. Cheung, P. Creminelli, A.L. Fitzpatrick, J. Kaplan, L. Senatore, "The Effective Field Theory of Inflation", JHEP 0803: 14 (2008). Steven Weinberg, "Effective Field Theory for Inflation", Physical Review D77: 123541 (2008). Cliff P. Burgess, Hyun Min Lee, Michael Trott, "Power-Counting and the Validity of the Classical Approximation During Inflation", JHEP 0909: 103 (2009). |
| UPE | Unstable Particle Effective Theory [for W, top, & QCD] |
M. Beneke, A. P. Chapovsky, A. Signer, G. Zanderighi, "Effective Theory Approach to Unstable Particle Production", Physical Review Letters 93: 011602 (2004); "Effective Theory Calculation of Resonant High-Energy Scattering", Nuclear Physics B686: 205-247 (2004). |
| EFS | EFT of a Fermi Surface | Joseph Polchinski, "Effective Field Theory and the Fermi Surface." Lectures presented at TASI, 1992. |
| CEW | Chiral EFT for the Weak Interactions of a Heavy Higgs (though not what nature picked) |
Ferruccio Feruglio, "The Chiral Approach to the Electroweak Interactions." International Journal of Modern Physics A8: 4937-4972 (1993). |
| SME | Standard Model EFT Anomalous Dimensions |
A.Manohar, E.Jenkins, M.Trott "Naive Dim.Analysis Counting for Gauge Theory Amplitudes and Anom.Dims.." Phys.Lett. B726 (2013) 697. A.Manohar et.al. "Renormalization Group Evolution for SM Dimension 6 Operators." JHEP 1404 (2014) 159. |
| FCE | Flavor Changing Electroweak Interactions at Low Energy (beyond what was covered in lecture) |
Andrzej J. Buras, "Weak Hamiltonian, CP Violation and Rare Decays." (1998). G. Buchalla, A.J. Buras, M.E. Lautenbacher "Weak Decays Beyond Leading Logarithms." Reviews of Modern Physics 68: 1125-1144 (1996). |
| HDE | High Density Effective Theory (HDET) for QCD |
Deog Ki Hong, "Aspects of High Density Effective Theory in QCD." Nuclear Physics B582: 451-476 (2000). Thomas Schaefer, "Hard Loops, Soft Loops, and High Density Effective Field Theory." Nuclear Physics A728: 251-271 (2003). |
| FDN | Finite Density Nucleon EFT |
R. J. Furnstahl, J.V. Steele, N. Tirfessa, "Perturbative Effective Field Theory at Finite Density." Nuclear Physics A671: 396-415 (2000). R.J. Furnstahl, R. J., H. -W. Hammer, N. Tirfessa, "Field Redefinitions at Finite Density." Nuclear Physics A689: 846-868 (2001). |
| NES | Chiral EFT for Neutron Stars, Equation of State and Grav. Waves |
K.Hebeler, J.M.Lattimer, C.J.Pethick, A.Schwenk, " Constraints on neutron star radii based on chiral effective field theory interactions." Phys.Rev.Lett. 105 (2010) 161102, Equation of state and neutron star properties constrained by nuclear physics and observation." Astrophys.J. 773 (2013) 11.A.Bauswein, H.T.Janka, K.Hebeler, A.Schwenk, "Equation-of-state dependence of the gravitational-wave signal from the ring-down phase of neutron-star mergers." Phys.Rev.D 86 (2012) 063001. |
| FAE | Ferromagnets and Antiferromagnets from EFT | Heinrich Leutwyler, "Nonrelativistic Effective Lagrangians." Physical Review D49: 3033-3043 (1994). |
| PTE | Full Classification of Local Scalar EFTs | C.Cheung et.al., "A Periodic Table of Effective Field Theories." JHEP 1702 (2017) 020. |
| AXI | Axions in EFT |
G.G.di Cortona, E.Hardy, J.P.Vega, G.Villadoro, "The QCD Axion, precisely." (2004). Anson Hook, "TASI Lectures on the Strong CP Problem and Axions." (2002). |
| EDK | Extra Dimensions and KK States as an EFT |
Csaba Csaki, "TASI Lectures on Extra Dimensions and Branes." (2004). Ira Z. Rothstein, "TASI Lectures on Effective Field Theories." (2002). |
| GMS | Gauge Mediated Supersymmetry, Integrating out Messengers |
Gian F. Giudice and Riccardo Rattazzi. "Extracting Supersymmetry-Breaking Effects from Wave-Function Renormalization." Nuclear Physics B511: 25-44 (1998). Daniele Bertolini, Jesse Thaler, Zachary Thomas "TASI 2012: Super-Tricks for Superspace." (2013). |
| CPY | Counting 4pi in SUSY Theories |
A.Cohen, D.B.Kaplan, A.Nelson. "Counting factors of (4pi) in SM and SUSY theories." Phys.Lett. B412 (1997) 301-308. |
| NRQ | Non-Relativistic QCD: Quarkonia Production and Decays |
Geoffrey T. Bodwin, Eric Braaten, G. Peter Lepage "Rigorous QCD Analysis of Inclusive Annihilation and Production of Heavy Quarkonium." Physical Review D51: 1125-1171 (1997). |
| PNR | Non-Relativistic QCD: potential regime |
N.Brambilla, A.Pineda, J.Soto, A.Vairo "Effective field theories for heavy quarkonium." Rev.Mod.Phys. 77, 1423 (2005). |
| VRG | Non-Relativistic QCD: Velocity Renormalization Group |
Michael E. Luke, Aneesh V. Manohar, Ira Z. Rothstein "Renormalization Group Scaling in Nonrelativistic QCD." Physical Review D61: 074025 (2000). A. H. Hoang, A. V. Manohar, I.W.Stewart, T.Teubner, "The Threshold t-tbar Cross Section at NNLL Order." Physical Review D65: 014014 (2001). |
| HPB | Non-Relativistic QED: Hydrogen or Positronium Bound States, Renormalization |
Antonio Pineda and Joan Soto, "The Lamb Shift in Dimensional Regularization." Physics Letters B420: 391-396 (1998). Aneesh V. Manohar and Iain W. Stewart, "Logarithms of Alpha in QED Bound States from the Renormalization Group." Physical Review Letters 85: 2248-2251 (2000). |
| QGP | Quantum Gravity in Perturbation Theory |
Gerald 't Hooft and Martinus Veltman, "One-loop Divergences in the Theory of Gravitation" Ann.Inst.Henri Poincare, Vol.XX, pg.69 (1974). John F. Donoghue, "Introduction to the Effective Field Theory Description of Gravity." (1995). |
| WZT | Wess-Zumino Terms in EFT | eg. π0 → γγ in Georgi's Weak Interactions Book |
| LNQ | Large Nc QCD, Effective Fields for Counting Ncs | Aneesh V. Manohar, "Large N QCD" review article (1998). |
| SMX | EFT for small x |
Ian Balitsky, "Effective field theory for the small-x evolution" Phys.Lett.B518:235-242 (2001). Ira Rothstein and Iain Stewart, "An effective field theory for forward scattering and factorization violation" JHEP 1608 (2016) 025. |
| EQC | EFT for Quasi-Classical Plasmas | Lowell S. Brown and Laurence G. Yaffe. "Effective Field Theory for Highly Ionized Plasmas." Physics Reports 340: 1-164 (2001). |
| UFP | Ultraviolet Fixed Points in Gravity | Alessandro Codello, Roberto Percacci, Christoph Rahmede, "Investigating the Ultraviolet Properties of Gravity with a Wilsonian Renormalization Group Equation." Annals of Physics 324: 414-469 (2009). |
| EBH | EFT for Black Holes and the Cosmological Constant | Andrew G. Cohen, David B. Kaplan, Ann E. Nelson, "Effective Field Theory, Black Holes, and the Cosmological Constant." Physical Review Letters 82: 4971-4974 (1999). |
| EFX | EFT for the X(3872) | S.Fleming, M.Kusunoki, T.Mehen, U. van Kolck, "Pion Interactions in the X(3872)." Phys.Rev.D76:034006 (2007). |
| COF | Conformal EFT | A.L. Fitzpatrick, E. Katz, D.Poland, D.Simmons-Duffin, "Effective Conformal Theory and the Flat-Space Limit of AdS." Journal of High Energy Physics 1107: 23 (2011). |
| ECA | EFT for Cold Atoms | Eric Braaten and Hans W. Hammer, "Efimov Physics in Cold Atoms." Annals of Physics 322: 120-363 (2007). |
| BOA | Born-Oppenheimer Approximation as an EFT | N.Brambilla, G.Krein, J.T.Castellà, A.Vairo, "The Born-Oppenheimer approximation in an effective field theory language." Phys.Rev.D97:016016 (2018). |
| SRE | Short Range Correlatons and the EMC Effect | J.W.Chen, W.Detmold, J.E.Lynn, A.Schwenk, "The Short Range Correlations and the EMC Effect in Effective Field Theory." Phys.Rev.Lett. 119, 262502 (2017). |
| LCR | Limit Cycles in 3-body Renormalization |
Paulo F. Bedaque, Hans W. Hammer, U. van Kolck, The Three boson system with short range interactions", Nucl.Phys. A646, 444-466 (1999). Paulo F. Bedaque, Three nucleons at very low-energies", Proceedings of Nuclear Physics with effective field theory, 1998. See also Hans W. Hammer and Thomas Mehen, A renormalized equation for the three-body system with short-range interactions", Nucl.Phys. A690, 535-546 (2001). |
| CPR | Chiral Perturbation Theory for Matter fields |
Elizabeth E. Jenkins and Aneesh V. Manohar, "Baryon Chiral Perturbation Theory using a Heavy Fermion Lagrangian", Phys.Lett. B255, 558-562 (1991). (For πs coupling to a single nucleon.) Mark B. Wise, " Chiral Perturbation Theory for Hadrons Containing a Heavy Quark", Phys.Rev. D45, 2188 (1992) Ch.5, Manohar and Wise (For πs coupling to a single heavy meson.) A review of the Heavy Baryon formalism can be found in Stefan Scherer, " ", Adv.Nucl.Phys. 27, 277 (2007). |
| EDM | P and T violating Chiral Lagrangians and EDMs |
J.Bsaisou et.al., "P- and T-violating Lagrangians in chiral effective field theory and nuclear electric dipole moments", Annals Phys. 359 (2015) 317. |
| HNU | Halo Nuclei in EFT |
H.H.Hammer and D.R.Phillips, "Effective field theory description of halo nuclei", J. Phys. G44, 103002 (2017). |
| FLS | Lattice QCD EFT: Finite Lattice Spacing |
Martin Luscher, "Advanced Lattice QCD." Lectures given at the Les Houches Summer School 'Probing the Standard Model of Particle Interactions', July 28-September 5, 1997. Oliver Baer, Gautam Rupak, Noam Shoresh, "Chiral perturbation theory at O(a^2) for lattice QCD." Physical Review D70: 034508 (2004). |
| PQC | Lattice QCD EFT: Partially Quenched ChPT |
Stephen Sharpe and Noam Shoresh, "Partially Quenched Chiral Perturbation Theory Without φ0", Physical Review D64: 114510 (2001). Maarten Golterman, Ka Chun Leung, "Applications of Partially Quenched Chiral Perturbation Theory", Physical Review D57: 5703-5710 (1998). Claude Bernard and Maarten Golterman, "Partially Quenched Gauge Theories and a Application to Staggered Fermions", Physical Review D49: 486-494 (1994). |
| FVF | Lattice QCD EFT: Finite Volume |
Gilberto Colangelo, Stephan Durr, Christoph Haefeli, "Finite Volume Effects for Meson Masses and Decay Constants", Nucl.Phys B721: 136-174 (2005). |
| FLS | Lattice QCD+QED EFT: Long Range Forces at Finite Volume |
Silas R.Beane and Martin J.Savage, "Two-Particle Elastic Scattering in a Finite Volume Including QED." Phys.Rev. D90: 074511 (2014). |
| TEX | EFT modes via the Threshold Expansion | Martin Beneke and Vladimir A. Smirnov, "Asymptotic expansion of Feynman integrals near threshold." Nucl.Phys. B522, 321-344 (1988). |
| LEG | Low Energy Goldstino Theorems, Nonlinear Goldstino Representations |
Zohar Komargodski and Nathan Seiberg. "From Linear SUSY to Constrained Superfields." JHEP 0909: 066 (2009). Daniele Bertolini, Jesse Thaler, Zachary Thomas "TASI 2012: Super-Tricks for Superspace." (2013). |
| SDM | Seiberg Duality, Matching the Low Energy Description of Two Theories | N. Seiberg, "Electric-Magnetic Duality in Supersymmetric Non-Abelian Gauge Theories." Nuclear Physics B435: 129-46 (1995). |
| DMD | EFT for Dark Matter Direction Detection |
Ji Ji Fan, Matthew Reece, Lian-Tao Wang, " Non-relativistic effective theory of dark matter direct detection", JCAP 1011: 042 (2010). A.L. Fitzpatrick, W. Haxton, E.Katz, N.Lubbers, Y.Xu, "The Effective Field Theory of Dark Matter Direct Detection", JCAP 1302 004 (2013). |
| DMA | EFT for Heavy Dark Matter Annihilation |
G.Ovanesyan, T.R.Slatyer, I.W.Stewart, " Heavy Dark Matter Annihilation from Effective Field Theory", Phys.Rev.Lett 114 (2015) 21, 211302. M.Baumgart, T.Cohen, I.Moult, N.L.Rodd, T.R.Slatyer, M.P.Solon, I.W.Stewart, V.Vaidya, " Resummed Photon Spectra for WIMP Annihilation", JHEP 1803 (2018) 117. |
| GRL | CMB Gravitational Lensing with EFT | E.E.Jenkins, A.V. Manohar, W.J. Waalewijn, A.P.S. Yadav, "Gravitational Lensing of the CMB: a Feynman Diagram Approach", Phys.Lett.B736 6-10 (2014); and "Higher-Order Gravitational Lensing Reconstruction using Feynman Diagrams." JCAP 1409: 024 (2014). |
| SCE | Electroweak Soft-Collinear EFT | J. Chiu et.al., "Electroweak Corrections in High Energy Processes using EFT", Phys. Rev. D77 (2008) 053004. |
| SOF | Soft Theorems in EFT | A.Larkoski, D.Neill, I.W.Stewart, "Soft Theorems from EFT", JHEP 1506 (2015) 077. |
| FOQ | Subtractions from SCET for Fixed Order QCD |
J.R.Gaunt, M.Stahlhofen, F.J.Tackmann, J.R.Walsh, "N-jettiness Subtractions for NNLO QCD Calculations", JHEP 09 (2015) 058. M.A.Ebert, I.Moult, I.W.Stewart, F.J.Tackmann, G.Vita, H.X.Zhu, "Power Corrections for N-Jettiness Subtractions at O(as)", JHEP 12 (2018) 084. G.Billis, M.A.Ebert, J.K.L.Michel, F.J.Tackmann, "A Toolbox for qT and 0-Jettiness Subtractions at N3LO". |
| NLP | SCET for Colliders Beyond Leading Power |
I.Moult, I.W.Stewart, G.Vita, "Subleading Power Factorization with Radiative Functions", JHEP 11 (2019) 153. I.Moult, I.W.Stewart, G.Vita, H.X. Zhu, "First Subleading Power Resummation for Event Shapes", JHEP 08 (2018) 013. |
| HEL | SCET with Helicity Building Blocks |
I.Moult, I.W.Stewart, F.J.Tackmann, W.J.Waalewijn, "Employing Helicity Amplitudes for Resummation", Phys. Rev. D 93, 094003. D.W.Kolodrubetz, I.Moult, I.W.Stewart, "Building Blocks for Subleading Helicity Operators", JHEP 05 (2016) 139. I.Moult, I.W.Stewart, G.Vita, "A Subleading Operator Basis and Matching for gg→H", JHEP 07 (2017) 067. |
| EEC | Energy-Energy Correlators with EFT |
L.J.Dixon, I.Moult, H.X.Zhu, "The Collinear Limit of the Energy-Energy Correlator", Phys. Rev. D 100 (2019), 014009. H.Chen, M.X.Luo, I.Moult, T.Z.Yang, X.Zhang, H.X.Zhu, "Three Point Energy Correlators in the Collinear Limit: Symmetries, Dualities and Analytic Results" D.M.Hofman and J.Maldacena, "Conformal collider physics: Energy and charge correlations", JHEP 0805 (2008) 012. |
| QDI | Quasi-Distributions and the Large Energy EFT |
X.Ji, Y.S.Liu, Y.Liu, J.H.Zhang, Y.Zhao, "Large-Momentum Effective Theory" T.Izubuchi, X.Ji, L.Jin, I.W.Stewart, Y.Zhao, "Factorization Theorem Relating Euclidean and Light-Cone Parton Distributions", Phys.Rev.D 98 (2018) 5, 056004. M.Ebert, I.W.Stewart, Y.Zhao, "Determining the Nonperturbative Collins-Soper Kernel From Lattice QCD", Phys.Rev.D 99 (2019) 3, 034505. |
| CMP | An Example of EFT from Condensed Matter Physics | |
| CON |
A continuation of any other topic discussed in lecture not already mentioned above. A proposed topic must go beyond what we discuss in lecture. (HQET, SCET, Chiral perturbation theory, renormalons, electroweak Hamiltonian, NN effective theory (eg. np → dγ), higher dimension operators in the standard model, ...). |
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| XYZ |
A topic of your choosing (with instructor's approval). I'm aware that this list is far from complete and some of you will surely come up with a topic you find more interesting than those I have listed. For example I didn't mention any EFT topics from beyond the standard model besides the MSSM and extra dimension models.
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Important Dates and Suggested Timeline
Milestone |
Description |
Timeline |
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Topic Selection
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Select topic from the suggested Topic List above. Create a well-thought out abstract and title. |
Feb. 3-Apr. 14, 2022 |
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Your topic, title and abstract are now due April 15, 2022, you can submit them in the Abstract and Title Submission part of the courseware.
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Background research.
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Read and synthesize references. |
March 30-May 1, 2022 |
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Create Talk
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Create notes or slides for your talk. |
May 2-May 9, 2020 |
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Watch Peer Presentations
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We will have a mini-EFT workshop on one full day during exam week, where you will have the opportunity to present your presentation and watch those of your peers. Covid permitting, the workshop will also include a free lunch together. |
A day during May 13-29, 2022 |
- Presentation Tips
- Have a clear flow throughout the presentation. Begin with the topic, outline and a clear introduction.
- Supplement and synthesize information from references. Do not simply summarize.
- Give context for your topic. Explain why it is interesting and important.
- Present only one "big idea" per slide (with the exception of an outline or summary slide). A good rule-of-thumb is one slide for every 1-2 minutes of the presentation.
- Do *not* hesitate to use equations, as long as they are easy to understand. This talk is meant to replace a blackboard-style lecture, so do not shy away from including necessary equations. If you need to refer to them at several points in the talk, make sure they are clearly visible on screen each time.
- Do not read aloud from your slides. Use slides to supplement your talk.
- Do not put in too much material. There is a 30-minute time limit - watch the clock. Do not try to put an hour of material into 30 minutes.
- Practice and ask for feedback. Set up the recoding system and practice presenting alone or with a peer. Identify parts where you have trouble finding the right words and work on them. During your final presentation, avoid making nervous sounds such as "Umm". Again, make sure the talk is about the right length.
- Slide/Recording Tips
- Make text large and easy to read. The resolution of screen-capture software is not great. A good minimum font size is 16-20 pt. Use sans-serif fonts. Use the same guidelines as you would for a presentation prepared for an audience in a large room.
- Use a plain, white background in your slides.
- Number your slides, so viewers can easily reference them.
- Polish your graphics. Keep each graphic simple and concise. Use distinct colors. Do not use red-green color combinations, as students may be colorblind. Make sure axes are readable.
Sample Video of a Presentation
Below is a sample video of the class TA giving an end of term presentation during the local rendition of this course. It should give you some idea of the level of content that is appropriate for your presentation.
