This is the second edition of a well-received book that is a modern, self-contained introduction to the theory of gravitational interactions. The new edition includes more details on gravitational waves of cosmological origin, the so-called brane world scenario, and gravitational time-delay effects.The first part of the book follows the traditional presentation of general relativity as a geometric theory of the macroscopic gravitational field, while the second, more advanced part discusses the deep analogies (and differences) between a geometric theory of gravity and the gauge theories of the other fundamental interactions. This fills a gap within the traditional approach to general relativity which usually leaves students puzzled about the role of gravity. The required notions of differential geometry are reduced to the minimum, allowing room for aspects of gravitational physics of current phenomenological and theoretical interest, such as the properties of gravitational waves, the gravitational interactions of spinors, and the supersymmetric and higher-dimensional generalization of the Einstein equations. This textbook is primarily intended for students pursuing a theoretical or astroparticle curriculum but is also relevant for PhD students and young researchers.

This is a comprehensive book, easily accessible to those who have a fairly good knowledge of special relativity and electromagnetic theory. It is ideal for introducing students to the study of gravitation and relativity following a modern presentation.

This is a comprehensive book, easily accessible to those who have a fairly good knowledge of special relativity and electromagnetic theory. It is ideal for introducing students to the study of gravitation and relativity following a modern presentation.

This volume, dedicated to Prof. Gabriele Veneziano on the occasion of his retirement from CERN, starts as a broad historico-scientific study on the work on string theory and nonperturbative QCD that has been pioneered by Prof. Veneziano in the late 60s and early 70s. It goes on to examine the many ramifications this and similar early work has spawned over the past decades and the reader will find state-of-the art tutorial reviews on string cosmology, string dualities and symmetries, and much more.

The book includes a concise updated scientific biography of, and an interview with, Prof. Veneziano, in which he relates his personal views about the present and future of fundamental physics. This is followed by the commented draft of an unpublished paper of 1973 of his, anticipating interesting results which were rediscovered and published more than a decade later.

Overall, this volume is a vast and unique canvas where the re-examination of older and the presentation of newer results and insights are skillfully mixed with personal recollections of the contributing authors, most of them involved in the early days of string and quantum field theory, about Prof. Veneziano and the many interrelated topics considered.

The standard cosmological picture of our Universe emerging from a 'big bang' leaves open many fundamental questions which string theory, a unified theory of all forces of nature, should be able to answer. This 2007 text was the first dedicated to string cosmology, and contains a pedagogical introduction to the basic notions of the subject. It describes the possible scenarios suggested by string theory for the primordial evolution of our Universe. It discusses the main phenomenological consequences of these scenarios, stresses their differences from each other, and compares them to the more conventional models of inflation. The book summarises over 15 years of research in this field and introduces advances. It is self-contained, so it can be read by astrophysicists with no knowledge of string theory, and high-energy physicists with little understanding of cosmology. Detailed and explicit derivations of all the results presented provide a deeper appreciation of the subject.

Terms such as "expanding Universe," "big bang," and "initial singularity," are nowadays part of our common language. The idea that the Universe we observe today originated from an enormous explosion (big bang) is now well known and widely accepted, at all levels, in modern popular culture. But what happens to the Universe before the big bang? And would it make any sense at all to ask such a question? In fact, recent progress in theoretical physics, and in particular in String Theory, suggests answers to the above questions, providing us with mathematical tools able in principle to reconstruct the history of the Universe even for times before the big bang.

In the emerging cosmological scenario the Universe, at the epoch of the big bang, instead of being a "new born baby" was actually a rather "aged" creature in the middle of its possibly infinitely enduring evolution. The aim of this book is to convey this picture in non-technical language accessibile also to non-specialists. The author, himself a leading cosmologist, draws attention to ongoing and future observations that might reveal relics of an era before the big bang.

This is the second edition of a well-received book that is a modern, self-contained introduction to the theory of gravitational interactions. The new edition includes more details on gravitational waves of cosmological origin, the so-called brane world scenario, and gravitational time-delay effects.The first part of the book follows the traditional presentation of general relativity as a geometric theory of the macroscopic gravitational field, while the second, more advanced part discusses the deep analogies (and differences) between a geometric theory of gravity and the gauge theories of the other fundamental interactions. This fills a gap within the traditional approach to general relativity which usually leaves students puzzled about the role of gravity. The required notions of differential geometry are reduced to the minimum, allowing room for aspects of gravitational physics of current phenomenological and theoretical interest, such as the properties of gravitational waves, the gravitational interactions of spinors, and the supersymmetric and higher-dimensional generalization of the Einstein equations. This textbook is primarily intended for students pursuing a theoretical or astroparticle curriculum but is also relevant for PhD students and young researchers.

This book has been prepared to celebrate the 65th birthday of Gabriele Veneziano and his retirement from CERN in September 2007. This reti- ment certainly will not mark the end of his extraordinary scienti?c career (in particular, he will remain on the permanent sta? of the Coll` ege de France in Paris), but we believe that this important step deserves a special celebration, and an appropriate recognition of his monumental contribution to physics. Our initial idea of preparing a volume of Selected papers of Professor Gabriele Veneziano, possibly with some added commentary, was dismissed when we realized that this format of book, very popular in former times, has become redundant today because of the full "digitalization" of all important physical journals, and their availability online in the electronic archives. We have thus preferred an alternative (and unconventional, but probably more e?ective) form of celebrating Gabriele's birthday: a collection of new papers written by his main collaborators and friends on the various aspects of th- retical physics that have been the object of his research work, during his long and fruitful career.

New fundamental forces of Nature? New forms of "dark'' energy? Signals from epochs preceding the Big Bang? Is our space-time unique? Only a joint study of the three topics examined in this book - gravity, strings and particles - may provide answers to these questions. Such a study may also provide the key to solving one of the most fascinating mysteries of modern science, namely: Besides time and the three spatial dimensions, how many other dimensions exist in our universe?
The book is primarily addressed to readers who do not necessarily have a specific background in physics but are nevertheless interested in discovering the originality and the possible implications of some of the amazing ideas in modern theoretical physics. The emphasis is on conveying ideas rather than explaining formulas, focusing not on what is known but -- mainly -- on what is still unknown. Many parts of the book are devoted to fundamental theoretical models and results which are potentially highly relevant for a deeper understanding of Nature, but are still waiting to be confirmed (or disproved) by experiments. From this point of view, the material of this book may also be of interest to professional physicists, whether or not they work in the field of fundamental interactions.

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Terms such as "expanding Universe," "big bang," and "initial singularity," are nowadays part of our common language. The idea that the Universe we observe today originated from an enormous explosion (big bang) is now well known and widely accepted, at all levels, in modern popular culture. But what happens to the Universe before the big bang? And would it make any sense at all to ask such a question? In fact, recent progress in theoretical physics, and in particular in String Theory, suggests answers to the above questions, providing us with mathematical tools able in principle to reconstruct the history of the Universe even for times before the big bang.

In the emerging cosmological scenario the Universe, at the epoch of the big bang, instead of being a "new born baby" was actually a rather "aged" creature in the middle of its possibly infinitely enduring evolution. The aim of this book is to convey this picture in non-technical language accessibile also to non-specialists. The author, himself a leading cosmologist, draws attention to ongoing and future observations that might reveal relics of an era before the big bang.

Il libro e basato sulle lezioni attualmente tenute dall'autore presso l'Universita di Bari, ed e progettato in modo da rappresentare un testo di riferimento il piu possibile moderno, completo e autosufficiente per i corsi semestrale di Cosmologia, Astrofisica o Fisica Astroparticellare che compaiono nel piano di studi della Laurea Magistrale in Fisica e in Astronomia. Contiene gli elementi di base della cosmologia relativistica, del modello cosmologico standard e del suo completamento inflazionario. E' organizzato per servire da traccia ad un corso di cosmologia di stampo teorico, ma cerca di non perdere mai di vista il confronto con i principali risultati osservativi: molta attenzione viene infatti dedicata alla fenomenologia dei fondi cosmici, e in particolare alla radiazione gravitazionale fossile perche la sua rivelazione, diretta o indiretta, potrebbe dare indicazioni cruciali sulla scelta del corretto modello per l'Universo primordiale. Non mancano infine alcuni accenni ad argomenti di interesse emergente, di tipo teorico-fenomenologico, come lo studio dell'effetto di "deriva" del redshift, la cosmologia delle membrane, e il problema delle medie cosmologiche fatte su ipersuperfici spaziali (o nulle) non omogenee."

Una moderna presentazione della teoria della Relativita Ristretta, specificatamente progettata per i nuovi corsi della Laurea Triennale in Fisica. Un testo essenziale ma autosufficiente, che adotta lo stile e il linguaggio delle lezioni svolte in aula, e che introduce alle trasformazioni di Lorentz, alla formulazione covariante dell'elettromagnetismo e alle basi della cinematica e dinamica relativistiche. Include una discussione della cinematica dei processi d'urto e una derivazione dettagliata dell'effetto Cherenkov.

E' un libro che parla di fisica rivolgendosi a lettori che non hanno necessariamente una preparazione specifica in questo campo, ma sono comunque interessati a scoprire la novita, l'originalita e le possibili strane implicazioni di alcune sorprendenti idee utilizzate dalla fisica teorica moderna. Si puo classificare come libro di divulgazione scientifica, ma di stampo piuttosto non convenzionale perche si focalizza non solo cio che e gia noto ma anche - e soprattutto - su cio che ancora e ignoto. Molte parti di questo libro sono infatti dedicate all'introduzione e all'illustrazione di modelli e risultati teorici che sono potenzialmente di importanza cruciale per una comprensione piu profonda della Natura, ma che sono ancora in attesa di una definitiva conferma (o smentita) sperimentale. Da questo punto di vista il libro potrebbe avere interesse anche per i fisici di professione, specializzati o no nel campo della fisica teorica e delle interazioni fondamentali. La focalizzazione sui tre temi elencati nel titolo (gravita, stringhe e particelle) e principalmente motivata dal fatto che solo uno studio congiunto e approfondito di questi tre temi sembra in grado di fornirci la chiave di quello che probabilmente rappresenta uno dei piu grandi ed affascinanti misteri della scienza attuale: oltre al tempo e alle tre dimensioni dello spazio, esistono altre dimensioni nel nostro Universo? In caso affermativo, quante sono?"

The standard cosmological picture of our Universe emerging from a 'big bang' leaves open many fundamental questions which string theory, a unified theory of all forces of nature, should be able to answer. This 2007 text was the first dedicated to string cosmology, and contains a pedagogical introduction to the basic notions of the subject. It describes the possible scenarios suggested by string theory for the primordial evolution of our Universe. It discusses the main phenomenological consequences of these scenarios, stresses their differences from each other, and compares them to the more conventional models of inflation. The book summarises over 15 years of research in this field and introduces advances. It is self-contained, so it can be read by astrophysicists with no knowledge of string theory, and high-energy physicists with little understanding of cosmology. Detailed and explicit derivations of all the results presented provide a deeper appreciation of the subject.