An Introduction To Quantum Field Theory

Michael E. Peskin and Dan V. Schroeder

Published Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., c1995
UCSD Roger Record: B3398378

This is a very popular text. In many respects similar to the older, cheaper, Itzykson and Zuber. After quantization of scalars, spinors and vectors, it discusses elementary processes and perturbation theory. It goes on to cover many subjects that are not part of our course. While the text is generally insightful and clear, I do not like the way some of the topics covered in our course are presented (for example, the "clever" use of square root of Pauli matrices when introducing relativistic spinors).

Quantum Field Theory

Claude Itzykson & Jean-Bernard Zuber

Published: New York: McGraw-Hill International Book Co., c1980
UCSD Roger Record: B1722169

Has been re-issued by Dover and you can find a paperback version for about $25.
Amazon sells an electronic version too, for about the same price.

In many respects similar to the newer, pricier, Peskin and Schroeder (PS). After quantization of scalars, spinors and vectors, it discusses elementary processes and perturbation theory. It goes on to cover many subjects that are not part of our course. The style is somewhat more authoritative than PS, on occasion leaving you scratching your head, how did that follow? Still generally well explained, and fairly complete, a good text to learn and to keep for reference.

Relativistic Quantum Fields

James D. Bjorken and Sidney D. Drell

Published New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965
UCSD Roger Record: B2055422

There is a companion book- Relativistic Quantum Mechanics- by the same authors
Also published in New York byMcGraw-Hill, 1964; UCSD Roger Record: B1394900

Definitely old school, but I still find it very valuable. It is careful in its presentation of scattering in a way that most other texts are not. Superb presentation of dispersion relations, a subject that is almost never taught any more, but continues to be used extensively (go figure).

Field Theory: A Modern Primer

(Frontiers in Physics)
Pierre Ramond

Published: Redwood City, Calif.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., Advanced Book Program, c1989
UCSD Roger Record: B2466223.
There is an affordable Kindle edition of this text (under $35).

Ramond does not proceed canonically: he focuses on path integral quantization of scalar fields. The presentation is informal and clear, a good place to learn the restricted set of subjects he covers.

Lectures on Quantum Field Theory

Ashok Das

Published Hackensack, N.J.: World Scientific, c2008

UCSD Library Record B6110435

The Quantum Theory of Fields, Vols I and II

Steven Weinberg

Published Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1995-2000
UCSD Library Record: B4324532

Weinberg's encyclopedic approach to QFT makes these volumes utterly unsuitable as textbooks, but they constitute the ultimate reference work: if you can't find it here you probably can't find it anywhere. The attention to detail shows up in, among other places, the explicit and extensive accounting of labels and indices in every expression in this work, making the expression somewhat harder to digest. But the writing is extremely clear and the organization logical (which can't be said, strictly speaking, of the other texts).

PCT, Spin and Statistics, and All That

Raymond F. Streater and Arthur S. Wightman

Published Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 2000 printing
UCSD Library Record: B4223418

This monograph is significantly more math oriented and less physics oriented than the other texts listed here. Yet it has a very nice introduction to the Lorentz group and its representations. And it gives some important theorems on properties of fields and Green functions.

Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model

Matthew D. Schwartz

Published Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2014
UCSD Library Record: B8140823

New kid on the block. My first impression is that it rushes to get the student to computation competence without attention to fundamentals. May be useful, but not appropriate for our course.