Teaching a one-semester master-level physics course for physics students at Birzeit University is one of the first-ever activities for PWF in Palestine. The first time PWF was in Birzeit for teaching such a course was in 2013, and it became an annual activity ever since! 
 
This year, the course is being taught during the First Semester of the academic year 2024-2025, between September 2024 — January 2025. 
 
Organizers: 
- from Birzeit side: Physics Department and the UNESCO Chair in mathematics and theoretical physics.
- from ICTP: PWF

Instructors: Viraf Mehta, Federico Ambrosino (Lectures), Sara Bianco (Tutorials)

Course: PHYS 734: NUCLEAR AND PARTICLE PHYSICS   — Master level course in physics  (It is an elective course and part of the study plan of master students at Birzeit University).
 
Key topics in the course:
Nuclear stability and the structure of nuclei, the Shell model and nuclear excitations, the Parton Model and Feynman diagrams, cross-sections, high-energy scattering processes and particle production, elementary particles and the forces between them, Quarks and Leptons, weak, electromagnetic, and strong interactions, symmetries and different flavors, classification of particles, introduction to different experiments built to study particles and the techniques used.

Detailed Course description:  
This course is designed to introduce foundational concepts used in particle physics research to students with knowledge of advanced quantum mechanics, including:
- Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity (What is Field Theory?)
- Scalar, spinor and vector fields (Particles of the Standard Model);
- Symmetries and their breaking (Forces of the Standard Model and the Higgs Mechanism);
- Colliders and other high energy experiments (Discovering the Standard Model and beyond!).
The course also requires students to conduct a brief literature review of an advanced topic including a brief presentation of their findings.
Oftentimes, presentations have extended class discussion topics, both theoretical and experimental, and have included:
- Massive Neutrinos;
- Discovery of the Higgs Boson at the LHC;
- Dark Matter;
- Supersymmetry;
- The Cosmic Microwave Background;
- and many more!