Course description
In this graduate course we will discuss the foundations of the operator
product expansion and some interesting phenomenological results obtained
from its application. The course consists of seven lectures, starting from
February 23 until April 13 (note that April 6 is excluded because of the
Easter break). Lectures will be held on Tuesdays, 2 pm to 4 pm, via Zoom.
To sign up for the course, please write an email to nils@itp.unibe.ch and
join the course on Ilias.
In this course the students will be introduced to the operator product
expansion (OPE), with focus on its construction and applications. In the
OPE a product of local operators is decomposed in an operator basis, and
when used in a correlation function will produce a sum over long-distance
matrix elements multiplied by short-distance Wilson coefficients. The
students will learn the basics behind how this decomposition works and how
to obtain perturbative Wilson coefficients as well as non-perturbative
matrix elements. The students will see how the OPE is connected to sum
rules via example calculations. Towards the end of the course, focus will
be put on constructing an OPE in the presence of a background field to
study magnetic moments.
Learning outcome:
The overall learning objective is thus to understand the main ideas behind the OPE and how to use it for phenomenological purposes.
