The proceedings present new results obtained from recent observations by the Haverah Park, Yakutsk, Fly's Eye and Akeno groups on the shape of the energy spectrum, the arrival direction (point source) and the nature of the most energetic cosmic rays. They also contain an in-depth discussion of the present status of observations on discrete sources at TeV and PeV energies. A detailed discussion of the physics problems related to the origin, acceleration mechanism and propagation of the most energetic cosmic rays in the galactic and extragalactic space is given in relation to observable features.

Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays carry information about their sources and the intervening medium apart from providing a beam of particles for studying certain features of high energy interactions currently inaccessible at man-made accelerators. They can at present be studied only via the extensive air showers (EAS's) they generate while passing through the Earth's atmosphere, since their fluxes are too low for the experiments of limited capability flown in balloons and satellites. The EAS is generated by a series of interactions of the primary cosmic ray and its progeny with the atmospheric nuclei. The exponential nature of the atmosphere spreads the air showers laterally over several hundreds of meters, thus enabling ground-based arrays of relatively inexpensive detectors to record and study them.This book describes the EAS phenomenology, the detectors and techniques used, and the latest results on the energy spectrum and composition of the primaries of EAS's and the results on high energy interactions obtained from EAS studies. It also describes the new TeV and PeV gamma ray astronomy (which has been developing over the past decade) and the newly emerging neutrino astronomy, which are related to the origin of cosmic rays.This book serves as an introduction as well as a reference for researchers in the field.

This book provides the first comprehensive historical account of the evolution of scientific traditions in astronomy, astrophysics, and the space sciences within the Max Planck Society. Structured with in-depth archival research, interviews with protagonists, unpublished photographs, and an extensive bibliography, it follows a unique history: from the post-war relaunch of physical sciences in West Germany, to the spectacular developments and successes of cosmic sciences in the second half of the 20th century, up to the emergence of multi-messenger astronomy. It reveals how the Society acquired national and international acclaim in becoming one of the world’s most productive research organizations in these fields.

The proceedings of the first meeting on “New Worlds in Astroparticle Physics” focus on the joint field of particle physics and astrophysics. This is a field widely open to both theory and experiment. Important questions of particle physics — from the role of the Higgs scalar to the deconfined QCD phase, the developments beyond the Standard Model and the subtle behavior of neutrinos — are discussed. The same is true for the relevant questions in astrophysics and cosmology — from the fluctuations in the photon background radiation to large scale structure formation, dark matter searches and the origin of cosmic rays at very high energies. The two viewpoints, from the small sizes or from the large scales, are convergent and reveal the same universe: the universe of astroparticle physics.

This important book covers topics that are of major interest to the high energy physics community, including the most recent results from flavour factories, dark matter and neutrino physics. In addition, it considers future high energy machines.

This volume contains detailed articles by theorists and experimentalists in the newly developing field of astroparticle physics. A large variety of topics are covered. These include the role of neutrinos in astroparticle physics, big bang nucleosynthesis, string theory and cosmology.