This book provides a chronological introduction to the science of motion and rest based on the reading and analysis of significant portions of Galileo's Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, Pascal's Treatise on the Equilibrium of Fluids and the Weight of the Mass of Air, Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, and Einstein's Relativity. Each chapter begins with a short introduction followed by a reading selection. Carefully crafted study questions draw out key points in the text and focus the reader's attention on the author's methods, analysis, and conclusions. Numerical and laboratory exercises at the end of each chapter test the reader's ability to understand and apply key concepts from the text. Space, Time and Motion is the second of four volumes in A Student's Guide through the Great Physics Texts. This book grew out of a four-semester undergraduate physics curriculum designed to encourage a critical and circumspect approach to natural science, while at the same time preparing students for advanced coursework in physics. This book is particularly suitable as a college-level textbook for students of the natural sciences, history or philosophy. It also serves as a textbook for advanced high-school students, or as a thematically-organized source-book for scholars and motivated lay-readers. In studying the classic scientific texts included herein, the reader will be drawn toward a lifetime of contemplation.

This book provides a rather self-contained survey of the construction of Hadamard states for scalar field theories in a large class of notable spacetimes, possessing a (conformal) light-like boundary. The first two sections focus on explaining a few introductory aspects of this topic and on providing the relevant geometric background material. The notions of asymptotically flat spacetimes and of expanding universes with a cosmological horizon are analysed in detail, devoting special attention to the characterization of asymptotic symmetries. In the central part of the book, the quantization of a real scalar field theory on such class of backgrounds is discussed within the framework of algebraic quantum field theory. Subsequently it is explained how it is possible to encode the information of the observables of the theory in a second, ancillary counterpart, which is built directly on the conformal (null) boundary. This procedure, dubbed bulk-to-boundary correspondence, has the net advantage of allowing the identification of a distinguished state for the theory on the boundary, which admits a counterpart in the bulk spacetime which is automatically of Hadamard form. In the last part of the book, some applications of these states are discussed, in particular the construction of the algebra of Wick polynomials. This book is aimed mainly, but not exclusively, at a readership with interest in the mathematical formulation of quantum field theory on curved backgrounds.

The 20th century gave us two great theories of physics: the general theory of relativity, which describes the behaviour of things on a very large scale, including the entire Universe; and quantum theory, which describes the behaviour of things on a very small scale, the sub-atomic world. The refusal of the Universe to reveal an equation that combines these two great ideas has caused some people to doubt our whole understanding of physics. In this landmark new book, popular science master John Gribbin tells the dramatic story of the quest that has led us to discover the true age of the Universe (13.8 billion years) and the stars (just a little bit younger). This discovery, Gribbin argues, is one of humankind's greatest achievements and shows us that physics is on the right track to finding the 'Theory of Everything'. 13.8 provides an eye-opening look at this cutting-edge area of modern cosmology and physics, and tells the compelling story of what modern science has achieved - and what it can still achieve.

When predictions of Einstein's theory of General Relativity are compared against observations of our Universe, a huge inconsistency is found. The most popular fix for this inconsistency is to "invent" around 94% of the content of the universe: dark matter and dark energy. The dark energy is some exotic substance responsible for the apparent observed acceleration of the Universe. Another fix is to modify the theory of gravity: it is entirely plausible that Einstein's theory of General Relativity breaks down on cosmological scales, just as Newton's theory of gravity breaks down in the extreme gravitational field of the Sun. There are many alternative theories of gravity, each with the aim of describing observations of our Universe where General Relativity fails. Whether it is dark energy or some modified theory of gravity, it is clear that there is some "dark sector" in the Universe. In this thesis the author constructs a unifying framework for understanding the observational impact of general classes of dark sector theories, by formulating equations of state for the dark sector perturbations.

"What Bodanis does brilliantly is to give us a feel for Einstein as a person. I don't think I've ever read a book that does this as well . . . Whenever there's a chance for storytelling, Bodanis triumphs." --Popular Science "Fascinating." --Forbes Widely considered the greatest genius of all time, Albert Einstein revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos with his general theory of relativity and helped lead us into the atomic age. Yet in the final decades of his life, he was ignored by most working scientists, and his ideas were opposed by even his closest friends. How did this happen? Best-selling biographer David Bodanis traces the arc of Einstein's life--from the skeptical, erratic student to the world's most brilliant physicist to the fallen-from-grace celebrity. An intimate biography in which "theories of the universe morph into theories of life" (Times, London), Einstein's Greatest Mistake reveals what we owe Einstein today--and how much more he might have achieved if not for his all-too-human flaws.

This book is intended as an undergraduate textbook in electrodynamics at basic or advanced level. The objective is to attain a general understanding of the electrodynamic theory and its basic experiments and phenomena in order to form a foundation for further studies in the engineering sciences as well as in modern quantum physics. The outline of the book is obtained from the following principles: •         Base the theory on the concept of force and mutual interaction •         Connect the theory to experiments and observations accessible to the student •         Treat the electric, magnetic and inductive phenomena cohesively with respect to force, energy, dipoles and material •         Present electrodynamics using the same principles as in the preceding mechanics course •         Aim at explaining that theory of relativity is based on the magnetic effect •         Introduce field theory after the basic phenomena have been explored in terms of force Although electrodynamics is described in this book from its 1st principles, prior knowledge of about one semester of university studies in mathematics and physics is required, including vector algebra, integral and differential calculus as well as a course in mechanics, treating Newton’s laws and the energy principle. The target groups are physics and engineering students, as well as professionals in the field, such as high school teachers and employees in the telecom industry. Chemistry and computer science students may also benefit from the book.

Subtlety in Relativity is the only book that has been written after the author's discovery of a new way in which wave phenomena occur-the emission origin of waves. This drastically changes most issues of the old debate over the world being either deterministic or probabilistic. The emission origin of waves is not incompatible with the ideas of quantum theory; rather, this new and novel way in which waves can be generated justifies the use of mathematical and probabilistic methods of quantum theory. However, the emission origin of waves shows that quantum theory is statistically incomplete in, precisely, Einstein's sense. There exists, then, a certain, previously unexplored, conceptual framework underlying the ideas of quantum theory. Whether this is the theory that Einstein and others were looking for then, how this way of thinking is related to the ideas of relativity, and whether this is a relativistic theory in the usual sense of this word are questions this book answers. The book demonstrates how the Doppler effect with acceleration is essential to interpreting astronomical observations. It also offers a detailed and self-sufficient technical background of mathematical ideas of category theory. The book is divided into two parts. The first is less mathematical and more conceptual in its orientation. The second focuses on mathematical ideas needed to implement physical concepts. The book is a great reference for advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level students of physics and researchers in physics, astronomy, and cosmology, who will gain a deeper understanding of relativity from it.

Awarded the American Astronomical Society (AAS) Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize, and with a foreword by thesis supervisor Professor Shardha Jogee at the University of Texas at Austin, this thesis discusses one of the primary outstanding problems in extragalactic astronomy: how galaxies form and evolve. Galaxies consist of two fundamental kinds of structure: rotationally supported disks and spheroidal/triaxial structures supported by random stellar motions. Understanding the balance between these galaxy components is vital to comprehending the relative importance of the different mechanisms (galaxy collisions, gas accretion and internal secular processes) that assemble and shape galaxies. Using panchromatic imaging from some of the largest and deepest space-based galaxy surveys, an empirical census of galaxy structure is made for galaxies at different cosmic epochs and in environments spanning low to extremely high galaxy number densities. An important result of this work is that disk structures are far more prevalent in massive galaxies than previously thought. The associated challenges raised for contemporary theoretical models of galaxy formation are discussed. The method of galaxy structural decomposition is treated thoroughly since it is relevant for future studies of galaxy structure using next-generation facilities, like the James Webb Space Telescope and the ground-based Giant Magellan Telescope with adaptive optics.

The focus of his prize-winning thesis is on observations and modeling of binary millisecond pulsars. But in addition, John Antoniadis covers a wide range of observational measurements of binary compact stars systems and tests of General Relativity, like indirect measurements of gravitational wave emission and posing the most stringent constraints on Scalar-Tensor gravity theories. Among others, he presents a system that hosts the most massive neutron star known to date, which has important ramifications for strong-field gravity and nuclear physics. This impressive work was awarded the Otto-Hahn Medal of the Max-Planck Society and the Best PhD in Gravity, Particle and Atomic physics award by the German Physics Society (DPG).

This thesis addresses two of the central processes which underpin the formation of galaxies: the formation of stars and the injection of energy into the interstellar medium from supernovae, called feedback. In her work Claudia Lagos has completely overhauled the treatment of these processes in simulations of galaxy formation. Her thesis makes two major breakthroughs, and represents the first major steps forward in these areas in more than a decade. Her work has enabled, for the first time, predictions to be made which can be compared against new observations which probe the neutral gas content of galaxies, opening up a completely novel way to constrain the models. The treatment of feedback from supernovae, and how this removes material from the interstellar medium, is also likely to have a lasting impact on the field. Claudia Lagos Ph.D. thesis was nominated by the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University as an outstanding Ph.D. thesis 2012.

The main focus of this thesis is the mathematical structure of Group Field Theories (GFTs) from the point of view of renormalization theory. Such quantum field theories are found in approaches to quantum gravity related, on the one hand, to Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) and on the other, to matrix- and tensor models. Background material on these topics, including conceptual and technical aspects, are introduced in the first chapters. The work then goes on to explain how the standard tools of Quantum Field Theory can be generalized to GFTs and exploited to study the large cut-off behaviour and renormalization group transformations of the latter. Among the new results derived in this context are a proof of renormalizability of a three-dimensional GFT with gauge group SU(2), which opens the way to applications of the formalism to quantum gravity.

This comprehensive textbook on relativity integrates Newtonian physics, special relativity and general relativity into a single book that emphasizes the deep underlying principles common to them all, yet explains how they are applied in different ways in these three contexts. Newton's ideas about how to represent space and time, his laws of dynamics, and his theory of gravitation established the conceptual foundation from which modern physics developed. Book I in this volume offers undergraduates a modern view of Newtonian theory, emphasizing those aspects needed for understanding quantum and relativistic contemporary physics. In 1905, Albert Einstein proposed a novel representation of space and time, special relativity. Book II presents relativistic dynamics in inertial and accelerated frames, as well as a detailed overview of Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism. This provides undergraduate and graduate students with the background necessary for studying particle and accelerator physics, astrophysics and Einstein's theory of general relativity. In 1915, Einstein proposed a new theory of gravitation, general relativity. Book III in this volume develops the geometrical framework in which Einstein's equations are formulated, and presents several key applications: black holes, gravitational radiation, and cosmology, which will prepare graduate students to carry out research in relativistic astrophysics, gravitational wave astronomy, and cosmology.

This comprehensive work thoroughly introduces and reviews the set of results from Belle and BaBar - after more than two decades of independent and complementary work - all the way from the detectors and the analysis tools used, up to the physics results, and the interpretation of these results. The world's two giant B Factory collaborations, Belle at KEK and BaBar at SLAC, have successfully completed their main mission to discover and quantify CP violation in the decays of B mesons. CP violation is a necessary requirement to distinguish unambiguously between matter and antimatter. The shared primary objective of the two B Factory experiments was to determine the shape of the so-called unitarity triangle, an abstract triangle representing interactions of quarks, the elementary constituents of matter. The area of the triangle is a measure of the amount of CP violation associated with the weak force. Many other measurements have been performed by the B Factories and are also discussed in this work.

The present volume aims to be a comprehensive survey on the derivation of the equations of motion, both in General Relativity as well as in alternative gravity theories. The topics covered range from the description of test bodies, to self-gravitating (heavy) bodies, to current and future observations. Emphasis is put on the coverage of various approximation methods (e.g., multipolar, post-Newtonian, self-force methods) which are extensively used in the context of the relativistic problem of motion. Applications discussed in this volume range from the motion of binary systems -- and the gravitational waves emitted by such systems -- to observations of the galactic center. In particular the impact of choices at a fundamental theoretical level on the interpretation of experiments is highlighted. This book provides a broad and up-do-date status report, which will not only be of value for the experts working in this field, but also may serve as a guideline for students with background in General Relativity who like to enter this field.

This work investigates gravitational wave production in the early universe and identifies potentially observable features, thereby paving the way for future gravitational wave experiments. It focuses on gravitational wave production in two scenarios: inflation in a model inspired by loop quantum gravity, and preheating at the end of inflation. In the first part, it is demonstrated that gravitational waves' spectrum differs from the result obtained using ordinary general relativity, with potentially observable consequences that could yield insights into quantum gravity. In the second part, it is shown that the cosmic gravitational wave background is anisotropic at a level that could be detected by future experiments. Gravitational waves promise to be an rich source of information on the early universe. To them, the universe has been transparent from its earliest moments, so they can give us an unobstructed view of the Big Bang and a means to probe the fundamental laws of nature at very high energies.

The work in this thesis was a part of the experiment of squeezed light injection into the LIGO interferometer. The work first discusses the detailed design of the squeezed light source which would be used for the experiment. The specific design is the doubly-resonant, traveling-wave bow-tie cavity squeezed light source with a new modified coherent sideband locking technique. The thesis describes the properties affecting the squeezing magnitudes and offers solutions which improve the gain. The first part also includes the detailed modeling of the back-scattering noise of a traveling Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO). In the second part, the thesis discusses the LIGO Squeezed Light Injection Experiment, undertaken to test squeezed light injection into a 4km interferometric gravitational wave detector. The results show the first ever measurement of squeezing enhancement in a full-scale suspended gravitational wave interferometer with Fabry-Perot arms. Further, it showed that the presence of a squeezed-light source added no additional noise in the low frequency band. The result was the best sensitivity achieved by any gravitational wave detector. The thesis is very well organized with the adequate theoretical background including basics of Quantum Optics, Quantum noise pertaining to gravitational wave detectors in various configurations, along with extensive referencing necessary for the experimental set-up. For any non-experimental scientist, this introduction is a very useful and enjoyable reading. The author is the winner of the 2013 GWIC Theses Prize.

Dark Energy and Dark Matter are among the greatest mysteries in modern cosmology. The present work explores in depth how large cosmic structures can help us unveil the nature of these components of the Universe. One the one hand, it focuses on a signature that Dark Energy imprints on the Cosmic Microwave Background through its impact on the time-evolution of gravitational potentials: the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (iSW) effect. Another cosmological background, the Cosmic Infrared Background, is considered for the first time in the study of the iSW effect and demonstrated to be a highly efficient and promising tracer. Changing the perspective on the problem, the use of superstructures for iSW detection is then extensively reviewed: using precise solutions to Einstein's general relativity equations, the full iSW effect is computed, especially due to the cosmic voids predicted by the theory. Using measurements from the most recent data, it is subsequently shown how the iSW probes the solidity of the cosmological standard model. On the topic of Dark Matter, an original study is presented, showing that temperature measurements of the intergalactic medium shed light on the nature of Dark Matter particles, providing the tightest constraints on their decay properties.

In recent years cosmologists have advanced from largely qualitative models of the Universe to precision modelling using Bayesian methods, in order to determine the properties of the Universe to high accuracy. This timely book is the only comprehensive introduction to the use of Bayesian methods in cosmological studies, and is an essential reference for graduate students and researchers in cosmology, astrophysics and applied statistics. The first part of the book focuses on methodology, setting the basic foundations and giving a detailed description of techniques. It covers topics including the estimation of parameters, Bayesian model comparison, and separation of signals. The second part explores a diverse range of applications, from the detection of astronomical sources (including through gravitational waves), to cosmic microwave background analysis and the quantification and classification of galaxy properties. Contributions from 24 highly regarded cosmologists and statisticians make this an authoritative guide to the subject.

Most astronomers and physicists now believe that the matter content of the Universe is dominated by dark matter: hypothetical particles which interact with normal matter primarily through the force of gravity. Though invisible to current direct detection methods, dark matter can explain a variety of astronomical observations. This book describes how this theory has developed over the past 75 years, and why it is now a central feature of extragalactic astronomy and cosmology. Current attempts to directly detect dark matter locally are discussed, together with the implications for particle physics. The author comments on the sociology of these developments, demonstrating how and why scientists work and interact. Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), the leading alternative to this theory, is also presented. This fascinating overview will interest cosmologists, astronomers and particle physicists. Mathematics is kept to a minimum, so the book can be understood by non-specialists.

Quantum physics started in the 1920's with wave mechanics and the wave-particle duality. However, the last 20 years have seen a second quantum revolution, centered around non-locality and quantum correlations between measurement outcomes. The associated key property, entanglement, is recognized today as the signature of quantumness. This second revolution opened the possibility of studying quantum correlations without any assumption on the internal functioning of the measurement apparata, the so-called Device-Independent Approach to Quantum Physics. This thesis explores this new approach using the powerful geometrical tool of polytopes. Emphasis is placed on the study of non-locality in the case of three or more parties, where it is shown that a whole new variety of phenomena appear compared to the bipartite case. Genuine multiparty entanglement is also studied for the first time within the device-independent framework. Finally, these tools are used to answer a long-standing open question: could quantum non-locality be explained by influences that propagate from one party to the others faster than light, but that remain hidden so that one cannot use them to communicate faster than light? This would provide a way around Einstein's notion of action at a distance that would be compatible with relativity. However, the answer is shown to be negative, as such influences could not remain hidden.

Expanding on the concept of the authors' previous book "Electroweak Processes in External Electromagnetic Fields," this new book systematically describes the investigation methods for the effects of external active media, both strong electromagnetic fields and hot dense plasma, in quantum processes. Solving the solar neutrino puzzle in a unique experiment conducted with the help of the heavy-water detector at the Sudbery Neutrino Observatory, along with another neutrino experiments, brings to the fore electroweak physics in an active external medium. It is effectively demonstrated that processes of neutrino interactions with active media of astrophysical objects may lead, under some physical conditions, to such interesting effects as neutrino-driven shockwave revival in a supernova explosion, a "cherry stone shooting" mechanism for pulsar natal kick, and a neutrino pulsar. It is also shown how poor estimates of particle dispersion in external active media sometimes lead to confusion. The book will appeal to graduate and post-graduate students of theoretical physics with a prior understanding of Quantum Field Theory (QFT) and the Standard Model of Electroweak Interactions, as well as to specialists in QFT who want to know more about the problems of quantum phenomena in hot dense plasma and external electromagnetic fields.

This book presents thermal field theory techniques, which can be applied in both cosmology and the theoretical description of the QCD plasma generated in heavy-ion collision experiments. It focuses on gauge interactions (whether weak or strong), which are essential in both contexts. As well as the many differences in the physics questions posed and in the microscopic forces playing a central role, the authors also explain the similarities and the techniques, such as the resummations, that are needed for developing a formally consistent perturbative expansion. The formalism is developed step by step, starting from quantum mechanics; introducing scalar, fermionic and gauge fields; describing the issues of infrared divergences; resummations and effective field theories; and incorporating systems with finite chemical potentials. With this machinery in place, the important class of real-time (dynamic) observables is treated in some detail. This is followed by an overview of a number of applications, ranging from the study of phase transitions and particle production rate computations, to the concept of transport and damping coefficients that play a ubiquitous role in current developments. The book serves as a self-contained textbook on relativistic thermal field theory for undergraduate and graduate students of theoretical high-energy physics.

This book focuses on the phenomena of inertia and gravitation, one objective being to shed some new light on the basic laws of gravitational interaction and the fundamental nature and structures of spacetime. Chapter 1 is devoted to an extensive, partly new analysis of the law of inertia. The underlying mathematical and geometrical structure of Newtonian spacetime is presented from a four-dimensional point of view, and some historical difficulties and controversies - in particular the concepts of free particles and straight lines - are critically analyzed, while connections to projective geometry are also explored. The relativistic extensions of the law of gravitation and its intriguing consequences are studied in Chapter 2. This is achieved, following the works of Weyl, Ehlers, Pirani and Schild, by adopting a point of view of the combined conformal and projective structure of spacetime. Specifically, Mach's fundamental critique of Newton's concepts of 'absolute space' and 'absolute time' was a decisive motivation for Einstein's development of general relativity, and his equivalence principle provided a new perspective on inertia. In Chapter 3 the very special mathematical structure of Einstein's field equations is analyzed, and some of their remarkable physical predictions are presented. By analyzing different types of dragging phenomena, Chapter 4 reviews to what extent the equivalence principle is realized in general relativity - a question intimately connected to the 'new force' of gravitomagnetism, which was theoretically predicted by Einstein and Thirring but which was only recently experimentally confirmed and is thus of current interest.

This volume presents the lectures of the nineteenth Canary Islands Winter School, dedicated to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). This relict radiation from the very early Universe provides a fundamental tool for precision cosmology. Prestigious researchers in the field present a comprehensive overview of current knowledge of the CMB, reviewing the theoretical foundations, the main observational results and the most advanced statistical techniques used in this discipline. The lectures give coverage from the basic principles to the most recent research results, reviewing state of the art observational and statistical analysis techniques. The impact of new experiments and the constraints imposed on cosmological parameters are emphasized and put into the broader context of research in cosmology. This is an important resource for both graduate students and experienced researchers, revealing the spectacular progress that has been made in the study of the CMB within the last decade.

The Golden Oldies series of the journal General Relativity and Gravitation reprints important papers in general relativity theory that were published 30 or more years ago and are either hard to get hold of, or were originally printed in a language other than English. They play a key part in making these important papers readily accessible today, in the language that has now become the lingua franca of scientific publication. The value of this reprinting is enhanced by an accompanying editorial note for each paper, which briefly explains the significance of the work and where it has subsequently led to, together with a biographical note about the author or authors. This volume presents a selection of 14 rarities among the Golden Oldies grouped in the three categories "Basic results in differential geometry and general relativity," "Discussion of physical effects" and "Basic exact solutions and their interpretation." Researchers in the field will appreciate having these important papers collected in one book for the first time. Reprinted from the journal General Relativity and Gravitation.