Corrections to

Concepts of Elementary Particle Physics

by Michael E. Peskin

I hope that you are enjoying my textbook "Concepts of Elementary Particle Physics". It is meant to explain to students and other readers what the "Standard Model of Particle Physics" is, where it came from, and what the underlying principles of this model are.

The book does not assume prior knowledge of quantum field theory, but many principles of quantum field theory are discussed in the book using the easiest examples. The book stresses the point that the ideas of quantum field theory grew up in a manner intertwined with experimental discoveries about elementary particles. A full understanding of the fundamental laws of physics requires knowledge of both the theoretical and the experimental aspects. I hope that this book will provide an introduction to both sides of this subject.

Many of the principles, and, especially, the successes of the Standard Model are quite subtle. If you are a student and you learn something surprising, quiz your professors about it. Everyone can benefit from understanding the Standard Model better.

My textbook is now available in its 2nd printing. If you bought the book new in early 2024 or after, this is the edition that you will have. The 2nd printing corrects most of the errors previously listed on this page. I am grateful to many people for notifying me of errors, but I especially thank Andrzej Czarnecki and Samiur Rahman Mir at the University of Alberta for their very thorough and critical reading. For those people who have the first printing, the previous version of this page is available at this link.

No book by a human author is perfect. I am sure that further errors will require correction. Errors found in the book will be reported on this page. If you find an error, please email me (mpeskin"at"slac.stanford.edu), and I will post the correction here. I hope that these corrections will bring the book closer to that level of technical perfection that students long for but authors find so elusive.

• Chapter 1:
• Chapter 2:
• Chapter 3:
  • p. 31: In eq. (3.32), the second line should read: "F^{ij} = del_i A^j - del_j A^i = epsilon^{ijk} B^k". (Thanks to Andrzej Czarnecki.)
  • p. 32: In Eq. (3.37), "-J^nu" should be replaced by "+J^nu". In Eq. (3.38), "J^mu" should be replaced by "J^nu". (Thanks to Andrzej Czarnecki and Francis Onah.)
• Chapter 4:
• Chapter 5:
  • p. 72: In Eq. (5.54), the third term in the second line should read " - | u(down) d(up) u(up) >". This completes the pattern correctly. (Thanks to Stanford Broadwater.)
• Chapter 6:
• Chapter 7:
• Chapter 8:
• Chapter 9:
  • p. 146: Please note that, in the Section 9.5, the momenta k,k' are used for the incoming and outgoing electrons and p, p' are used for the incoming and outgoing quarks. I apologize for any confusion. (Thanks to Andrzej Czarnecki.)
  • p. 147: In Exercise 9.2, part (c), line 3. "build" should read "built". (Thanks to Andrzej Czarnecki.)
• Chapter 10:
  • p. 150: The right hand sides in eq. (10.4) might be confusing. On p. 133, I defined a pdf f_i(x) as giving the probability f_i(x) dx of finding a parton i in a small interval of momentum dx. So you might find it strange that pdfs are not always normalized to 1. But if there are 2 u quarks in the proton, these probabilities should actually sum to 2 when summed over all x. This is the logic behind the normalization integrals given in eq. (10.4). (Thanks to Andrzej Czarnecki.)
• Chapter 11:
• Chapter 12:
• Chapter 13:
• Chapter 14:
  • p. 223: In eqs. (14.30), the first exponential should read should read "e^{-i \vec p . \vec x}", with p and x as 3-vectors. The superscript "05a" on j is correct.
  • p. 227: It is not obvious why I did not write (14.55) simply as (md-mu)/(md+mu) = (mK0^2 - mK+^2)/(mpi^2). However, this equation gives a significantly different answer, 0.2 instead of 0.3. The explanation is that electromagnetism also affects the mass difference between K+ and K0. These corrections are larger for the K+; electromagnetism gives the charged particle gets a larger mass than the neutral particle. This is why the pi+ is heavier than the pi0. It can be shown that the electromagnetic correction giving (mpi+^2 - mpi0^2) is equal to the electromagnetic correction to (mK+^2 - mK0^2). Then the formula (14.55) cancels this correction and thus gives a more accurate evaluation of the quark masses. (Thanks to Jaime Anguiano Olarra.)
• Chapter 15:
  • p. 240: In the first line of eq. (15.38), after "16GF^2", the factor of the muon mass should read "m_mu^4", not "m_mu^3". Also, the factor "(1-x_{nubar})^2" should be simply "(1-x_{nubar})". The second line of this equation is correct as written. (Thanks to Ruth Britto.)
  • p. 243: Eq. (15.50) has a LaTex misprint. I hope you can read that the ket is "|pi^2(p)>".
• Chapter 16:
  • p. 257: In the next to last line of the top paragraph, "The ratio g'/g is a an" should read "The ratio g'/g is an". (Thanks to Ruth Britto.)
• Chapter 17:
  • p. 269: In the second line below eq. (17.25), "p pbar" should read "pp". (Thanks to Jaime Anguiano Olarra.)
• Chapter 18:
  • p. 291: In eq. (18.42), "|V_cb|^2" should read "|V_cb|^{-2}". (Thanks to Ruth Britto.)
• Chapter 19:
  • p. 305: In the 2nd line below eq. (19.57), "the decay the" should read: "include the decay of the" . (Thanks to Andrzej Czarnecki.)
  • p. 310: In Exercise 19.1, part (b), 2nd line, "direct decay" should read simply "decay". (Thanks to Andrzej Czarnecki.)
• Chapter 20:
  • p. 314: In eq. (20.3), the prefactor should be multiplied by (4pi)^2, since we integrate over the angular variables. (Thanks to Ruth Britto.)
  • p. 317: Just below eq. (20.19), there is a small LaTeX error -- the space should appear before the Delta.
• Chapter 21:
  • p. 329: In eq. (21.9), the factor "64" in the denominator should be "64 pi". (Thanks to Ruth Britto.)
• Chapter 22:
• Backmatter:
  • Eq. (A.18) should read: " (sigma^i)^2 = 1, sigma^i sigma^j = i epsilon^{ijk} sigma^k for i not = j". (Thanks to Ruth Britto.)

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  M. E. Peskin

  SLAC