Describes the dark matter problem in particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology for graduate students and researchers.

The first accessible book on a theory of physics that explains the relationship between the particles and forces that make up our universe. For decades, physicists have been fascinated with the possibility that two seemingly independent aspects of our world—matter and force—may in fact be intimately connected and inseparable facets of nature. This idea, known as supersymmetry, is considered by many physicists to be one of the most beautiful and elegant theories ever conceived. According to this theory, however, there is much more to our universe than we have witnessed thus far. In particular, supersymmetry predicts that for each type of particle there must also exist others, called superpartners. To the frustration of many particle physicists, no such superpartner particles have ever been observed. As the world’s most powerful particle accelerator—the Large Hadron Collider—begins operating in 2008, this may be about to change. By discovering the forms of matter predicted by supersymmetry, this incredible machine is set to transform our current understanding of the universe’s laws and structure, and overturn the way that we think about matter, force, space, and time. Nature’s Blueprint explores the reasons why supersymmetry is so integral to how we understand our world and describes the incredible machines used in the search for it. In an engaging and accessible style, it gives readers a glimpse into the symmetries, patterns, and very structure behind the universe and its laws. “As the world’s most powerful particle accelerator revs up, Dan Hooper’s book is essential reading.” —New Scientist “[An] energetic exploration of modern physics.” —Kirkus Reviews

The past decade has witnessed dramatic developments in the field of theoretical physics. This book is a comprehensive introduction to these recent developments. It contains a review of the Standard Model, covering non-perturbative topics, and a discussion of grand unified theories and magnetic monopoles. It introduces the basics of supersymmetry and its phenomenology, and includes dynamics, dynamical supersymmetry breaking, and electric-magnetic duality. The book then covers general relativity and the big bang theory, and the basic issues in inflationary cosmologies before discussing the spectra of known string theories and the features of their interactions. The book also includes brief introductions to technicolor, large extra dimensions, and the Randall-Sundrum theory of warped spaces. This will be of great interest to graduates and researchers in the fields of particle theory, string theory, astrophysics and cosmology. The book contains several problems, and password protected solutions will be available to lecturers at www.cambridge.org/9780521858410.

The twentieth century was astonishing in all regards, shaking the foundations of practically every aspect of human life and thought, physics not least of all. Beginning with the publication of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, through the wild revolution of quantum mechanics, and up until the physics of the modern day (including the astonishing revelation, in 1998, that the Universe is not only expanding, but doing so at an ever-quickening pace), much of what physicists have seen in our Universe suggests that much of our Universe is unseen—that we live in a dark cosmos. Everyone knows that there are things no one can see—the air you're breathing, for example, or, to be more exotic, a black hole. But what everyone does not know is that what we can see—a book, a cat, or our planet—makes up only 5 percent of the Universe. The rest—fully 95 percent—is totally invisible to us; its presence discernible only by the weak effects it has on visible matter around it. This invisible stuff comes in two varieties—dark matter and dark energy. One holds the Universe together, while the other tears it apart. What these forces really are has been a mystery for as long as anyone has suspected they were there, but the latest discoveries of experimental physics have brought us closer to that knowledge. Particle physicist Dan Hooper takes his readers, with wit, grace, and a keen knack for explaining the toughest ideas science has to offer, on a quest few would have ever expected: to discover what makes up our dark cosmos.

The epic story of the quest to uncover a fully unified theory of physics, revised to reflect the possible discovery of the Higgs Boson.

This book describes the basic concepts of supersymmetric theories. It is aimed at theorists, experimentalists and cosmologists interested in supersymmetry, and its content is correspondingly divided into three distinct tracks of study. The topics covered include a discussion of the motivation for supersymmetry in fundamental physics, a description of the minimal supersymmetric model as well as models of grand unification and string models, a presentation of the main scenarios forsupersymmetry breaking, including the concepts and results of dynamical breaking. On the astrophysics/cosmology side, the book includes discussions of supersymmetric dark matter candidates, inflation, dark energy, and the cosmological constant problem. Some very basic knowledge of quantum field theoryis needed and extensive appendices (in particular an introduction to the Standard Model of fundamental interactions) allow the reader to refresh and complete their notions.

This OA text develops the basic concepts of supersymmetry for experimental and phenomenological particle physicists and graduate students.