In June 1997, fifty-seven of the world's best students gathered at TASI '97 in Boulder, Colorado, USA, to attend an intensive series of lectures on the theory and phenomenology of supersymmetry, supergravity and supercolliders. This book contains the proceedings of that school. It is aimed at advanced graduate students as well as postdoctoral and other researchers. It provides a snapshot of the state-of-the-art in an active area of high energy particle theory, and may perhaps serve as a preview of physics to be discovered in the next decade.
The book is a fairly non-technical introduction to modern supersymmetry phenomenology, approaching the subject in new and unique ways. It is suitable both for theorists and experimentalists, and emphasizes an intuitive grasp of the subject. Theoretical and experimental motivations, and the status and prospects of low-energy supersymmetry are discussed. It is shown by explicit construction that the stabilization of any perturbative theory which contains fundamental scalar bosons naturally leads to the notion of supersymmetry. The minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model is then pedagogically defined and its experimental status is summarized. Renormalization of the models, including unificaiton, is discussed and the linkage between high and low energies is demonstrated, providing a potential probe of Planck-scale physics, such as unified theories. Besides a host of other phenomena, Higgs physics is discussed and the Higgs mass is shown to provide a crucial test of nearly all supersymmetric theories.
Neutrinos are the central thread in the study of many aspects of particle physics and astrophysics. Neutrino interactions test the standard electroweak theory and its TeV scale extensions, and examine the structure of the nucleon and of the CKM matrix. Searches for neutrino mass and other intrinsic properties probe new physics at very short distance scales. The weak interactions of neutrinos imply for them a unique role in studying the early universe, the core of the Sun, type II supernovae, and active galactic nuclei, and suggest the possibility of small neutrino masses contributing to the missing matter in the Universe, especially on very large distance scales.
Neutrinos are the central thread in the study of many aspects of particle physics and astrophysics. Neutrino interactions test the standard electroweak theory and its TeV scale extensions, and examine the structure of the nucleon and of the CKM matrix. Searches for neutrino mass and other intrinsic properties probe new physics at very short distance scales. The weak interactions of neutrinos imply for them a unique role in studying the early universe, the core of the Sun, type II supernovae, and active galactic nuclei, and suggest the possibility of small neutrino masses contributing to the missing matter in the Universe, especially on very large distance scales.
From superstring theory to models with extra dimensions to dark matter and dark energy, a range of theoretically stimulating ideas have evolved for physics beyond the standard model. These developments have spawned a new area of physics that centers on the interplay between particle physics and cosmology—astroparticle physics. Providing the necessary theoretical background, Particle and Astroparticle Physics clearly presents the many recent advances that have occurred in these fields. Divided into five parts, the book begins with discussions on group and field theories. The second part summarizes the standard model of particle physics and includes some extensions to the model, such as neutrino masses and CP violation. The next section focuses on grand unified theories and supersymmetry. The book then discusses the general theory of relativity, higher dimensional theories of gravity, and superstring theory. It also introduces various novel ideas and models with extra dimensions and low-scale gravity. The last part of the book deals with astroparticle physics. After an introduction to cosmology, it covers several specialized topics, including baryogenesis, dark matter, dark energy, and brane cosmology. With numerous equations and detailed references, this lucid book explores the new physics beyond the standard model, showing that particle and astroparticle physics will together reveal unique insights in the next era of physics.
Supersymmetry or SUSY, one of the most beautiful recent ideas of physics, predicts sparticles existing as superpartners of particles. This book gives a theoretical and phenomenological account of sparticles. Starting from a basic level, it provides a comprehensive, pedagogical and user-friendly treatment of the subject of four-dimensional N=1 supersymmetry as well as its observational aspects in high energy physics and cosmology. Part One of the book introduces the requisite formal theory, preceded by a discussion of the naturalness problem. Part Two describes the supersymmetrization of the Standard Model of particle interactions as well as the origin of soft supersymmetry breaking and how it can be mediated from higher energies. Search strategies for sparticles, supersymmetric Higgs bosons, nonminimal scenarios and cosmological implications are some of the other topics covered. Novel features of the book include a dictionary between two-component and four-component spinor notation, a step-by-step derivation of the nonrenormalization theorem, an extended discussion of supersymmetric renormalization group evolution, detailed analyses of minimal and nonminimal models with gravity (including anomaly) mediated and gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking as well as elaborate self-contained presentations of collider signals of sparticles plus supersymmetric Higgs bosons and of supersymmetric cosmology. Appendices list all Feynman rules for the vertices of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.
It is now a century ago that one of the icons of modern physics published some of the most influential scientific papers of all times. With his work on relativity and quantum theory, Albert Einstein has altered the field of physics forever. It should not come as a surprise that looking back at Einstein's work, one needs to rethink the whole scope of physics, before and after his time. This books aims to provide a perspective on the history of modern physics, spanning from the late 19th century up to today. It is not an encyclopaedic work, but it presents the groundbreaking and sometimes provocative main contributions by Einstein as marking the line between ‘old’ and ‘new’ physics, and expands on some of the developments and open issues to which they gave rise. This presentation is not meant as a mere celebration of Einstein’s work, but as a critical appraisal which provides accurate historical and conceptual information. The contributing authors all have a reputation for working on themes related to Einstein’s work and its consequences. Therefore, the collection of papers gives a good representation of what happened in the 100 years after Einstein’s landmark Annalen der Physik articles. All people interested in the field of physics, history of science and epistemology could benefit from this book. An effort has been made to make the book attractive not only to scientists, but also to people with a more basic knowledge of mathematics and physics.
During August 1985, a group of 95 physicists from 61 laboratories in 24 countries met in Erice for the 23rd Course of the International School of Subnu clear Physics. The countries represented were: Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Marocco, Norway, Pakistan, the Peoples' Republic of China, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kindom, and the United States of America. The School was sponsored by the European Physical Society (EPS), the Italian Ministry of Public Education (MPI), the Italian Ministry of Scientific and Technological Research (MRST), the Sicilian Regional Government (ERS), and the Weizmann Institute of Science. This year's programme was devoted to the key point of present times: do new substructures and therefore new forces of nature exist, in addition to the well-known ones? This key point was reviewed from the theoretical point of view, keeping both eyes open on the checking of theories versus experimental facts. This is way a large spectrum of basic experiments and theoretical works having their roots in the known fundamental forces, have been discussed in great detail by world specialists. I hope the reader will enjoy the book as much as the students enjoyed the School, and the most attractive part of it, the discussions sessions. Thanks to the scientific work these discussions have been reproduced as closely as possible to the real event.
Semiannual, with semiannual and annual indexes. References to all scientific and technical literature coming from DOE, its laboratories, energy centers, and contractors. Includes all works deriving from DOE, other related government-sponsored information, and foreign nonnuclear information. Arranged under 39 categories, e.g., Biomedical sciences, basic studies; Biomedical sciences, applied studies; Health and safety; and Fusion energy. Entry gives bibliographical information and abstract. Corporate, author, subject, report number indexes.
