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Books > Science & Mathematics > Physics > Particle & high-energy physics
For scientific, technological and organizational reasons, the end of World War II (in 1945) saw a rapid acceleration in the tempo of discovery and understanding in nuclear physics, cosmic rays and quantum field theory, which together triggered the birth of modern particle physics. The first fifteen years (1945-60) following the war's end - the "Startup Period" in modern particle physics -witnessed a series of major experimental and theoretical developments that began to define the conceptual contours (non-Abelian internal symmetries, Yang-Mills fields, renormalization group, chirality invariance, baryon-lepton symmetry in weak interactions, spontaneous symmetry breaking) of the quantum field theory of three of the basic interactions in nature (electromagnetic, strong and weak). But it took another fifteen years (1960-75) - the "Heroic Period" in modern particle physics - to unravel the physical content and complete the mathematical formulation of the standard gauge theory of the strong and electroweak interactions among the three generations of quarks and leptons. The impressive accomplishments during the "Heroic Period" were followed by what is called the "period of consolidation and speculation (1975-1990)", which includes the experimental consolidation of the standard model (SM) through precision tests, theoretical consolidation of SM through the search for more rigorous mathematical solutions to the Yang-Mills-Higgs equations, and speculative theoretical excursions "beyond SM".Within this historical-conceptual framework, the author - himself a practicing particle theorist for the past fifty years - attempts to trace the highlights in the conceptual evolution of modern particle physics from its early beginnings until the present time. Apart from the first chapter - which sketches a broad overview of the entire field - the remaining nine chapters of the book offer detailed discussions of the major concepts and principles that prevailed and were given wide currency during each of the fifteen-year periods that comprise the history of modern particle physics. Those concepts and principles that contributed only peripherally to the standard model are given less coverage but an attempt is made to inform the reader about such contributions (which may turn out to be significant at a future time) and to suggest references that supply more information. Chapters 2 and 3 of the book cover a range of topics that received dedicated attention during the "Startup Period" although some of the results were not incorporated into the structure of the standard model. Chapters 4-6 constitute the core of the book and try to recapture much of the conceptual excitement of the "Heroic Period", when quantum flavordynamics (QFD) and quantum chromodynamics (QCD) received their definitive formulation. [It should be emphasized that, throughout the book, logical coherence takes precedence over historical chronology (e.g. some of the precision tests of QFD are discussed in Chapter 6)]. Chapter 7 provides a fairly complete discussion of the chiral gauge anomalies in four dimensions with special application to the standard model (although the larger unification models are also considered). The remaining three chapters of the book (Chapters 7-10) cover concepts and principles that originated primarily during the "Period of Consolidation and Speculation" but, again, this is not a literal statement. Chapters 8 and 9 report on two of the main directions that were pursued to overcome acknowledged deficiencies of the standard model: unification models in Chapter 8 and attempts to account for the existence of precisely three generations of quarks and leptons, primarily by means of preon models, in Chapter 9. The most innovative of the final three chapters of the book is Chapter 10 on topological conservation laws. This last chapter tries to explain the significance of topologically non-trivial solutions in four-dimensional (space-time) particle physics (e.g. 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles, instantons, sphalerons, global SU(2) anomaly, Wess-Zumino term, etc.) and to reflect on some of the problems that have ensued (e.g. the "strong CP problem" in QCD) from this effort. It turns out that the more felicitous topological applications of field theory are found - as of now - in condensed matter physics; these successful physical applications (to polyacetylene, quantized magnetic flux in type-II low temperature superconductivity, etc.) are discussed in Chapter 10, as a good illustration of the conceptual unity of modern physics.
Gamma-ray astronomy began in the mid-1960s with balloon satellite, and, at very high photon energies, also with ground-based instruments. However, the most significant progress was made in the last decade of the 20th century, when the tree satellite missions SIGMA, Compton, and Beppo-Sax gave a completely new picture of our Universe and made gamma-ray astronomy an integral part of astronomical research. This book, written by well-known experts, gives the first comprehensive presentation of this field of research, addressing both graduate students and researchers. Gamma-ray astronomy helps us to understand the most energetic processes and the most violent events in the Universe. After describing cosmic gamma-ray production and absorption, the instrumentation used in gamma-ray astronomy is explained. The main part of the book deals with astronomical results, including the somewhat surprising result that the gamma-ray sky is continuously changing.
The centerpiece of the thesis is the search for muon neutrino to electron neutrino oscillations which would indicate a non-zero mixing angle between the first and third neutrino generations ( 13), currently the holy grail of neutrino physics. The optimal extraction of the electron neutrino oscillation signal is based on the novel library event matching (LEM) method which Ochoa developed and implemented together with colleagues at Caltech and at Cambridge, which improves MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillator Search) reach for establishing an oscillation signal over any other method. LEM will now be the basis for MINOS final results, and will likely keep MINOS at the forefront of this field until it completes its data taking in 2011. Ochoa and his colleagues also developed the successful plan to run MINOS with a beam tuned for antineutrinos, to make a sensitive test of CPT symmetry by comparing the inter-generational mass splitting for neutrinos and antineutrinos. Ochoa s in-depth, creative approach to the solution of a variety of complex experimental problems is an outstanding example for graduate students and longtime practitioners of experimental physics alike. Some of the most exciting results in this field to emerge in the near future may find their foundations in this thesis.
There are a number of unanswered questions which indicate that the Standard Model, successful as it is, cannot be the entire story. One solution to answering these questions is that the Standard Model is an effective low-energy theory of structure hopefully nearby in its energy scale in much the same way that a model of strong interactions among nucleons mediated by pions is an effective theory for the strong interactions of quarks mediated by coloured gluons. This book reviews the Standard Model and then examines the current status of composite models. After developing criteria for judging such models the text discusses two of the major indicators of compositeness, triviality and naturalness. Using this framework as a background the various models are summarized and discussed. This monograph concludes with a chapter describing the constraints imposed on composite models by current measurements of decay rates, magnetic moment measurements, flavour changing processes etc. and describing other ways to look for signatures of compositeness.This monograph attempts to be thorough, covering all aspects of composite models, as found in the literature at the time of completion of the manuscript. As such it should be of interest to any experimental or theoretical physicist having an interest in the subject. The review of the Standard Model in the first chapter is written in such a way that anyone with a basic knowledge of Quantum Field Theory should be able to understand the entire text. As such it could also be used for supplementary reading in graduate courses.
This is a commemoration volume to honor Professor M Veltman on the ocassion of his 60th birthday. It contains articles on Gauge field theories, a subject to which Prof. Veltman has made many important and seminal contributions. Some of the contributions are based on invited talks given at the Conference held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 16 - 18 1991. The articles in the book cover a wide range of topics from formal and phenomenological to the experimental aspects of Gauge theories.
This is a commemoration volume to honor Professor M Veltman on the ocassion of his 60th birthday. It contains articles on Gauge field theories, a subject to which Prof. Veltman has made many important and seminal contributions. Some of the contributions are based on invited talks given at the Conference held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 16 - 18 1991. The articles in the book cover a wide range of topics from formal and phenomenological to the experimental aspects of Gauge theories.
Periodic magnetic structures (undulators) are widely used in accelerators to generate monochromatic undulator radiation (UR) in the range from far infrared to the hard X-ray region. Another periodic crystalline structure is used to produce quasimonochromatic polarized photon beams via the coherent bremsstrahlung mechanism (CBS). Due to such characteristics as monochromaticity, polarization and adjustability, these types of radiation is of large interest for applied and basic research of accelerator-emitted radiation. The book provides a detailed overview of the fundamental principles behind electromagnetic radiation emitted from accelerated charged particles (e.g. UR, CBS, radiation of fast electrons in Laser flash fields) as well as a unified description of relatively new radiation mechanisms which attracted great interest in recent years. This are the so-called polarization radiation excited by the Coulomb field of incident particles in periodic structures, parametric X-rays, resonant transition radiation and the Smith-Purcell effect. Characteristics of such radiation sources and perspectives of their usage are discussed. The recent experimental results as well as their interpretation are presented.
Features Introduces the physics of accelerators, lasers, and plasma in tandem with the industrial methodology of inventiveness. Outlines a path from idea to practical implementation of scientific and technological innovation. Contains more than 380 illustrations and numerous end-of-chapter exercises.
Calabi-Yau spaces are complex spaces with a vanishing first Chern class, or equivalently, with trivial canonical bundle (canonical class). They are used to construct possibly realistic (super)string models and are thus being studied vigorously in the recent physics literature.In the main part of the Book, collected and reviewed are relevant results on (1) several major techniques of constructing such spaces and (2) computation of physically relevant quantities such as massless field spectra and their Yukawa interactions. Issues of (3) stringy corrections and (4) moduli space and its geometry are still in the stage of rapid and continuing development, whence there is more emphasis on open problems here. Also is included a preliminary discussion of the conjectured universal moduli space and related open problems. Finally, several detailed models and sample computations are included throughout the Book to exemplify the techniques and the general discussion.The Book also contains a Lexicon (28 pages) of 150 assorted terms, key-words and main results and theorems, well suited for a handy reference. Although cross-referenced with the main part of the Book, the Lexicon can also be used independently.The level of mathematics is guided and developed between that of the popular Physics Reports of Eguchi, Gilkey and Hanson and the book Superstrings (Vol. 2) by Green, Schwarz and Witten on one end and Principles of Algebraic Geometry of Griffiths and Harris on the other.This is the first systematic exposition in book form of the material on Calabi-Yau spaces, related mathematics and the physics application, otherwise scattered through research articles in journals and conference proceedings.
This thesis presents the measurement of the Higgs boson cross section in the diphoton decay channel. The measurement relies on proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy s = 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The collected data correspond to the full Run-2 dataset with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb-1. The measured cross sections are used to constrain anomalous Higgs boson interactions in the Effective Field Theory (EFT) framework. The results presented in this thesis represent a reduction by a factor 2 of the different photon and jet energy scale and resolution systematic uncertainties with respect to the previous ATLAS publication. The thesis details the calibration of electron and photon energies in ATLAS, in particular the measurement of the presampler energy scale and the estimation of its systematic uncertainty. This calibration was used to perform a measurement of the Higgs boson mass in the H and H 4l channels using the 36 fb 1 dataset.
This solutions booklet is a supplement to the text book 'Group Theory in Physics' by Wu-Ki Tung. It will be useful to lecturers and students taking the subject as detailed solutions are given.
Get ready to take another fantastic journey with physicist and author Robert Gilmore, this time with Dorothy, following the yellow building block road through the land of the Wizard of Quarks. Using characters and situations based on the universally known story, The Wizard of Oz, we learn along the way about the fascinating world of particle physics. Classes of particles, from quarks to leptons are shown in atomic garden, where atoms and molecules are produced; see how Dorothy, The Tin Geek, and the Cowardly Lion experience the bizarre world of subatomic particles. Thousands of readers who were delighted by the adventures and science content of Alice in Quantumland are in for another treat, with the prose and illustrations of Robert Gilmore.
This book provides a thorough description of the manifestly covariant canonical formalism of the abelian and non-abelian gauge theories and quantum gravity. The emphasis is on its non-perturbative nature and the non-use of the path-integral approach. The formalism presented here is extremely beautiful and transparent.
This book provides a thorough description of the manifestly covariant canonical formalism of the abelian and non-abelian gauge theories and quantum gravity. The emphasis is on its non-perturbative nature and the non-use of the path-integral approach. The formalism presented here is extremely beautiful and transparent.
This book is devoted to one of the most active domains of atomic physic- atomic physics of heavy positive ions. During the last 30 years, this terrain has attracted enormous attention from both experimentalists and theoreti cians. On the one hand, this interest is stimulated by rapid progress in the development of laboratory ion sources, storage rings, ion traps and methods for ion cooling. In many laboratories, a considerable number of complex and accurate experiments have been initiated, challenging new frontiers. Highly charged ions are used for investigations related to fundamental research and to more applied fields such as controlled nuclear fusion driven by heavy ions and its diagnostics, ion-surface interaction, physics of hollow atoms, x-ray lasers, x-ray spectroscopy, spectrometry of ions in storage rings and ion traps, biology, and medical therapy. On the other hand, the new technologies have stimulated elaborate theo retical investigations, especially in developing QED theory, relativistic many body techniques, plasma-kinetic modeling based on the Coulomb interactions of highly charged ions with photons and various atomic particles - electrons, atoms, molecules and ions. The idea of assembling this book matured while the editors were writ ing another book, X-Ray Radiation of Highly Charged Ions by H. F. Beyer, H. -J. Kluge and V. P. Shevelko (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 1997) covering a broad range of x-ray and other radiative phenomena central to atomic physics with heavy ions."
Quantum electrodynamics is an essential building block and an integral part of the gauge theory of unified electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions, the so-called standard model. Its failure or breakdown at some level would have a most profound impact on the theoretical foundations of elementary particle physics as a whole. Thus the validity of QED has been the subject of intense experimental tests over more than 40 years of its history. This volume presents an up-to-date review of high precision experimental tests of QED together with comprehensive discussion of required theoretical work.
This book lays the foundations for you to understand all that you always wanted to know about radioactivity. It begins by setting out essential information about the structure of matter, how radiation occurs and how it can be measured. It goes on to explore the substantial benefits of radioactivity through its many applications, and also the possible risks associated with its use. The field of radioactivity is explained in layman's terms, so that everybody who is interested can improve their understanding of issues such as nuclear power, radiation accidents, medical applications of radiation and radioactivity from the environment. Everything is radioactive. There is natural radioactivity in the homes that we live in, the food that we eat and the air that we breath. For over 100 years, people have recognised the potential for radioactivity to help solve problems and improve our standard of living. This has led to the creation of radioactivity levels in some places that are much higher than naturally-occurring background levels. Such high levels of radiation can be harmful to people and the environment, so there is a clear need to manage this potential harm and to make the risk worth the benefits mankind can achieve from radioactive materials.
This book mainly focuses on the experimental research of rf breakdown and field emission with novel methods, including triggering rf breakdown with high intensity laser and pin-shaped cathodes as well as locating field emitters with a high resolution in-situ imaging system. With these methods, this book has analyzed the power flow between cells during rf breakdown, observed the evolution of field emission during rf conditioning and the dependence of field emission on stored energy, and studied the field emitter distribution and origination. The research findings greatly expand the understanding of rf breakdown and field emission, which will in turn benefit future study into electron sources, particle accelerators, and high gradient rf devices in general.
This thesis focuses on a cutting-edge area of research, which is aligned with CERN's mainstream research, the "AWAKE" project, dedicated to proving the capability of accelerating particles to the energy frontier by the high energy proton beam. The author participated in this project and has advanced the plasma wakefield theory and modelling significantly, especially concerning future plasma acceleration based collider design. The thesis addresses electron beam acceleration to high energy whilst preserving its high quality driven by a single short proton bunch in hollow plasma. It also demonstrates stable deceleration of multiple proton bunches in a nonlinear regime with strong resonant wakefield excitation in hollow plasma, and generation of high energy and high quality electron or positron bunches. Further work includes the assessment of transverse instabilities induced by misaligned beams in hollow plasma and enhancement of the wakefield amplitude driven by a self-modulated long proton bunch with a tapered plasma. This work has major potential to impact the next generation of linear colliders and also in the long-term may help develop compact accelerators for use in industrial and medical facilities.
Vadim Knizhnik was one of the most promising theoretical physicists in the world. Unfortunately, he passed away at the very young age of 25 years. This memorial volume is to honor his contributions in Theoretical Physics. This is perhaps one of the most important collections of articles on the theoretical developments in String Theory, Conformal Field Theory and related topics. It consists of contributions from world-renowned physicists who have met Vadim Knizhnik personally and whom the late Knizhnik really respected. The contributions are systematic and pedagogical in format.
Vadim Knizhnik was one of the most promising theoretical physicists in the world. Unfortunately, he passed away at the very young age of 25 years. This memorial volume is to honor his contributions in Theoretical Physics. This is perhaps one of the most important collections of articles on the theoretical developments in String Theory, Conformal Field Theory and related topics. It consists of contributions from world-renowned physicists who have met Vadim Knizhnik personally and whom the late Knizhnik really respected. The contributions are systematic and pedagogical in format.
A state of the art description of organic photo- and electroactive molecules and their practical applications. Topics covered include molecular design and synthesis of highly light sensitive molecules and phenomena associated with electron-photon interaction in organic molecules: nonlinear beam propagation, photorefractivity, multiphoton excitations and absorption, charge photogeneration and mobility, photo- and electroluminescence, photochromism and electrochromism, organic synthesis, material engineering and processing. Applications are addresses: optical data storage, LEDs, optical signalling processing, optical power limiters.
This volume reviews the most recent progress on new exact solutions of the Yang-Mills SU(2) gauge field equations. In order to have a better understanding of the physical meaning of the Yang-Mills fields, the motion of a particle in these fields, first in general and then, in particular fields were discussed.
Key features: Complete introductory overview of cosmic ray physics Covers the origins, acceleration, transport mechanisms and detection of these particles Mathematical and technical detail is kept separate from the main text
This book provides an exhaustive account of the origin and dynamics of cosmic rays. Divided into three parts, it first gives an up-to-date summary of the observational data, then -- in the following theory section -- deals with the kinetic description of cosmic ray plasma. The underlying diffusion-convection transport equation, which governs the coupling between cosmic rays and the background plasma, is derived and analyzed in detail. In the third part, several applications of the solutions of the transport equation are presented and how key observations in cosmic ray physics can be accounted for is demonstrated. The applications include cosmic ray modulation, acceleration near shock waves and the galactic propagation of cosmic rays. While the book is primarily of interest to scientists working at the forefront of research, the very careful derivations and explanations make it suitable also as an introduction to the field of cosmic rays for graduate students. |
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