Particles, Fields and Forces


Book Description

How can fundamental particles exist as waves in the vacuum? How can such waves have particle properties such as inertia? What is behind the notion of “virtual” particles? Why and how do particles exert forces on one another? Not least: What are forces anyway? These are some of the central questions that have intriguing answers in Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Unfortunately, these theories are highly mathematical, so that most people - even many scientists - are not able to fully grasp their meaning. This book unravels these theories in a conceptual manner, using more than 180 figures and extensive explanations and will provide the nonspecialist with great insights that are not to be found in the popular science literature.




Perspectives in Particles and Fields


Book Description

The 1983 Cargese Summer Institute on Particles and Fields was organized by the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris (M. LEVY and J.-L. BASDEVANT), C.E.R.N. (M. JACOB), the Universite Catholique de Louvain (D. SPEISER and J. WEYERS), and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (R. GASTMANS). After 1975, 1977, 1979, and 1981, it was the fifth time they joined their efforts for organizing this Summer Insti tute. This school was characterized by simultaneous progress in the theory of elementary particles and by impressive experimental advances. On the theoretical front, one witnessed the new developments in lattice gauge theories, which explore the world of strongly interacting par ticles in a non-perturbative way, and progress in a better understan ding of the unity of all interactions based on supersymmetry. The experimentalists were ~roud to announce the discovery of the interme diate vector bosons; W- and ZO, at C.E.R.N., while physicists working with e+e- colliding beams continued to probe more deeply the validity of the theoretical models of strong, weak and electromagnetic inter actions. We owe many thanks to all those who have made this Summer Insti tute possible! Thanks are due to the Scientific Committee of NATO and its Presi dent for a generous grant and especially to the head of the Advanced Study Institute Program and his collaborators for their constant help and encouragement. We also thank the National Science Foundation (USA) for their financial assistance.




Field Theoretical Methods in Particle Physics


Book Description

The Advanced Study Institute on Field Theoretical Methods in Particle Physics was held at the Universitat Kaiserslautern in Kaiserslautern, Germany, from August 13 to August 24, 1979. Twenty invited lectures and seminar-speakers and 100 other participants attended this Institute. The contributions of most of the lecturers and seminar-speakers are contained in this volume. The revival of field theory in elementary particle physics that started about ten years ago has influenced all branches of elementary particle physics from fundamental research to pure phenomenology. The selection of field theoretical methods in part icle physics appropriate for the Institute is therefore the first task for the organizers. We decided to have constructive problems of gauge field theories and solvable models as two major areas to be covered during the Institute. If one considers the concepts and terminology currently used by pure field theorists, one notices that many of them were introduced and discussed first by pheno menologists in comparing quite elementary models directly with experimental data. For this reason, it seemed worthwhile to re serve considerable time to phenomenological field theory. The Institute was sponsored by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization whose funds made the Institute possible. It was co sponsored by the Bundes-Ministerium fur Forschung und Technologie in Bonn and the Landes-Ministerium fUr Kultus in Mainz. The City of Kaiserslautern made the Theodor Zink Museum avail able for a reception. Thanks are due in particular to its director, Dr. Dunkel.




Particles and Fields 2


Book Description

Particle physics seems to be entering a new period of consoli dation. In 1977 when the first summer institute on particles and fields was held at the Banff Center, the standard model of the electro-weak interaction was a promising model more or less con firmed; today it seems quite well-confirmed. QCD was considered as probably the correct theory of strong interactions; today most theo rists take it for granted. What seems to be lacking are computa tional tools and strenuous experimental testing; the major ideas seem to exist. Thus, this is a particularly auspicious time for a review of the status of theoretical and experimental particle physics and field theory. The lectures collected in this volume were presented from August 16 to August 27, 1981 at the Banff Center in Banff, Canada. The unifying theme was gauge fields and the topics covered dealt with electro-weak interactions, Q.C.D., sub-quarks and unified theories. The format of the Institute was as follows: thirteen lecture series of two to four hours each given by S. Brodsky, D. Bryman, M. Chen, S. Coleman, M. Creutz, H. Harari, J. Iliopoulos, C.H. Llewellyn Smith, P. Lepage, D. Perkins and L. Susskind. In addition there were nine seminars (one hour each) given by G. Bodwin, G. Bunce, M.




Field Theoretical Methods in Particle Physics


Book Description

The Advanced Study Institute on Field Theoretical Methods in Particle Physics was held at the Universitat Kaiserslautern in Kaiserslautern, Germany, from August 13 to August 24, 1979. Twenty invited lectures and seminar-speakers and 100 other participants attended this Institute. The contributions of most of the lecturers and seminar-speakers are contained in this volume. The revival of field theory in elementary particle physics that started about ten years ago has influenced all branches of elementary particle physics from fundamental research to pure phenomenology. The selection of field theoretical methods in part icle physics appropriate for the Institute is therefore the first task for the organizers. We decided to have constructive problems of gauge field theories and solvable models as two major areas to be covered during the Institute. If one considers the concepts and terminology currently used by pure field theorists, one notices that many of them were introduced and discussed first by pheno menologists in comparing quite elementary models directly with experimental data. For this reason, it seemed worthwhile to re serve considerable time to phenomenological field theory. The Institute was sponsored by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization whose funds made the Institute possible. It was co sponsored by the Bundes-Ministerium fur Forschung und Technologie in Bonn and the Landes-Ministerium fUr Kultus in Mainz. The City of Kaiserslautern made the Theodor Zink Museum avail able for a reception. Thanks are due in particular to its director, Dr. Dunkel.




Particle Physics and Introduction to Field Theory


Book Description

This unique book gives a unified presentation of the entire subject of particle physics, starting with a self-contained discussion of quantum field theory and going on with the symmetry and interaction of particles. It expresses the author's personal approach to the subject, and will be useful to beginning students as well as seasoned workers in the field.




The Experimental Foundations of Particle Physics


Book Description

Our current understanding of elementary particles and their interactions emerged from break-through experiments. This book presents these experiments, beginning with the discoveries of the neutron and positron, and following them through mesons, strange particles, antiparticles, and quarks and gluons. This second edition contains new chapters on the W and Z bosons, the top quark, B-meson mixing and CP violation, and neutrino oscillations. This book provides an insight into particle physics for researchers, advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Throughout the book, the fundamental equations required to understand the experiments are derived clearly and simply. Each chapter is accompanied by reprinted articles and a collection of problems with a broad range of difficulty.




Field Theory in Elementary Particles


Book Description

We respectfully submit these proceedings of the 1982 Orbis Scientiae for your reading enjoyment. As always, the success of the conference was due to the hard work and wisdom of the moderators and dissertators. This year, in addition to the excellent overview of QCD and GUT, and the customary reports of the latest progress in theoretical and experimental particle physics, there have been discussions of new developments in astrophysics and especially of field theory and composite models. We wish also to note here that the 1981 Orbis paper by Stephen S. Pinsky on "Death of Fractional Topological Charge" was actually co-authored by William F. Palmer of Ohio State University, whose name was inadvertently omitted from the authorship, due to a series of misunderstandings. As in the past, this Orbis Scientiae 1982 was supported on a small scale by the Department of Energy, and this year as well by the National Science Foundation, on the same scale. We would like to thank Mrs. Helga S. Billings for her excellent typing for the n-th time, where n is a large number. This series of proceedings is also enhanced by Linda Scott's editorial help which includes improvements in the presentation of some of the papers.







Particles And Fields - Proceedings Of The Ixth Jorge Andre Swieca Summer School


Book Description

This book contains the proceedings of the IXth Jorge André Swieca Summer School — Particles and Fields — held at Campos do Jordao in February 1997.It surveys some of the most interesting research topics in theoretical physics, like duality theory, quantum field theory in curved space-time, supersymmetry and the standard model, differential geometry and its applications in physics and cosmic ray physics.