The Particle Century

About this book

A series of essays by scientists who have been closely involved in this exciting research, it describes the unprecedented advances in our understanding of the Universe. Covering the major developments made during this, the Particle Century, including early accelerator physics, the rise of the Standard Model and the new comprehension in terms of the Big Bang, and extending right to the cutting edge of today's investigations, these essays add new insight to the continuing efforts to unravel the deepest secrets of Nature.

Contents

FROM THE ASHES The post-World War II period Decommissioning the Manhattan project Big science The establishment of major laboratories and new research infrastructure in the US, the USSR, and Europe COSMIC RAIN The discovery of new particles in cosmic rays Historical introduction and post-World War II achievements (pion, muon, strange particles) Recent developments FIRST ACCELERATOR FRUITS Particle beams and early detectors The discoveries of particle resonances in the 1950s and early 1960s, leading up to the discovery of the omega-minus in 1963 The bubble chamber THE 3-QUARK PICTURE The need for an underlying picture SU3 and mathematical techniques The quark model PROTON STRUCTURE The 1967 SLAC experiment Partons, scaling, and quarks GAUGE THEORY Field theory Yang-Mills schemes Different scenarios Spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs mechanism Calculations and renormalizability Asymptotic freedom UNEXPECTED WINDFALL Electron-positron collider physics New particles in the early 1970s The fourth quark and tau-lepton WEAK INTERACTIONS Parity violation The role of the neutrino Its discovery Neutrino types Universality The (V-A) structure of the weak interaction The discovery of neutral currents Neutrinos as a physics tool THE WEAK FORCE CARRIERS Initial searches for the W The implications of the neutral current discovery Proton-antiproton collisions The lead-up to and discovery of the W and Z particles QUARK MATRIX Quark transitions The Cabibbo and Kobayashi-Maskawa schemes CP-violation The emergence of B physics Future goals QUARK GLUE Quark dynamics Gluon phenomena Quantum chromodynamics effects THE STANDARD MODEL Six quarks and six leptons Precision measurements Implications for the top quark Searching for the Higgs THE TOP QUARK Hunting and disentangling the top quark BEYOND THE STANDARD MODEL Unifying electroweak and quark forces Supersymmetry Grand unification THE TOOLS 1: ACCELERATORS Historical introduction Post-World War II scene Personalities Electron and proton machines Colliding beams versus fixed targets Superconductivity Major machines of the world The demise of the SSC The future THE TOOLS 2: DETECTORS Looking at particles Historical introduction The rise and fall of optical techniques Electronic detectors Colliders and the requirement for full solid-angle coverage The "typical" detector Triggering Data handling Spinoff applications ASTROPARTICLE PHYSICS The synthesis of micro- and macrophysics Big Bang overview BIG BANG DYNAMICS Inflation, microwave background radiation, galaxy formation ASTRONOMY The interplay of ground-based and space-borne platforms COBE, Hubble New telescopes OUTLOOK

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