Particle Physics Phenomenology

Abstract

The most important milestones in particle physics are put in a historical perspective. We follow a century of scattering experiments, from Rutherford to LHC. We introduce successively the concept of the atomic nucleus, the study of β‎-decay and the proposal of the neutrino, the first internal symmetries, the Fermi theory and the Yukawa meson. In parallel we present the technical achievements in accelerator and detector technologies which made these advances possible. We end with the discovery of strange particles, the flavour SU(3) unitary symmetry, and the introduction of the quarks. This chapter follows a descriptive rather than a deductive approach and summa- rises many aspects of particle physics phenomenology which preceded the discovery of the Standard Model.