Template talk:Quantum field theories

This needs some reworking

I edited the template to try to make the classification between Theory and Model a bit more appropriate. The distinction should not be simply that "theory" appears in the title of the Wikipedia article as it seemed to be thus far. Rather the philosophy would be better to let "theory" denote a framework of QFTs, while letting "model" be a particular example (or closely related set) of QFTs. For example, the Yang-Mills is a particular model (up to the choice of the gauge group) with a particular Lagrangian. CFT is meanwhile a whole framework of QFTs which have conformal invariance.

The template needs further editing in the future since the distinction between "Standard" and the rest does not really make sense since four-fermion interaction theories are not in anyway non-standard. A better classification would be exactly into their QFT types: regular QFT, CFT, supersymmetric QFT, TQFT, possibly also low dimensional QFTs, and possibly a distinct subsection for particle-theory related QFTs as these have a distinct application from the rest and are more a particle theory topic anyway. It depends what this template is supposed to be: a collection of QFTs or a template of QFT itself. If the former then the "related" section is unnecessary. If the latter then the "related" section needs to be expanded and reclassified into some categorization. OpenScience709 (talk) 13:35, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

I did the reworking

I redid the template, instituting categories for the different field theories. Some choice had to be made here. "Regular" means just QFTs generally in d=3+1 that are not supersymmetric, conformal, or topological. Low dimensional QFTs also only includes ones that are not supersymmetric, conformal, or topological. Then, theories that are supersymmetric and conformal, I put in the conformal category. Finally, the particle theory section includes QFTs that are explicitly formed for their particle theory use. Of course whether QCD and QED should be here is up for debate, but I would not put them here as the terms are more widely used for Yang-Mills theories with fermions, irrespective of their particle physics application.

Please do let me know of any suggestions on how to improve this template! I did my best in trying to make it more organized and comprehensive (and specifically QFT orientated, kicking out some condensed matter physics things). OpenScience709 (talk) 00:08, 28 April 2022 (UTC)