This book reviews recent contributions of electron positron colliders to the precision test of the electroweak Standard Model. It includes a short summary of the measurements at the Z resonance and gives an overview of the electroweak processes above the Z. Subsequently, measurements of the W mass at LEP are discussed in detail. Late chapters offer an outlook on electroweak physics at the future LHC. Also features many illustrations and tables.

This up-to-date volume reviews the recent contributions of electron-positron colliders to the precision test of the electroweak Standard Model. In particular, it contains a short summary of the measurements at the Z resonance and gives an overview of the electroweak processes above the Z. Subsequently, the measurement of the W mass at LEP is discussed in detail. The implications for the precision test of the Standard Model are presented, giving the status of the global electroweak fit before the startup of Large Hadron Collider. The final chapters give an outlook on the electroweak physics at a future linear collider. The book also features many illustrations and tables. Readers obtain a coherent overview of the results of 20 years of electroweak physics conducted at electron-positron colliders.

During more than 10 years, from 1989 until 2000, the LEP accelerator and the four LEP experiments, ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL, have taken data for a large amount of measurements at the frontier of particle physics. The main outcome is a thorough and successful test of the Standard Model of electroweak interactions. Mass and width of the Z and W bosons were measured precisely, as well as the Z and photon couplings to fermions and the couplings among gauge bosons. The rst part of this work will describe the most important physics results of the LEP experiments. Emphasis is put on the properties of the W boson, which was my main research eld at LEP. Especially the precise determination of its mass and its couplings to the other gauge bosons will be described. Details on physics effects like Colour Reconnection and Bose-Einstein Correlations in W-pair events shall be discussed as well. A conclusive summary of the current electroweak measurements, including low-energy results, as the pillars of possible future ndings will be given. The important contributions from Tevatron, like the measurement of the top quark and W mass, will round up the present day picture of electroweak particle physics.

The electroweak theory of Glashow, Weinberg, and Salam (GWS) has become one of the twin pillars upon which our understanding of all particle physics phenomena rests. It is a brilliant achievement that qualitatively and quantitatively describes all of the vast quantity of experimental data that have been accumulated over some forty years. Note that the word quantitatively must be qualified. The low energy limiting cases of the GWS theory, Quantum Electrodynamics and the V-A Theory of Weak Interactions, have withstood rigorous testing. The high energy synthesis of these ideas, the GWS theory, has not yet been subjected to comparably precise scrutiny. The recent operation of a new generation of proton-antiproton (p{bar p}) and electron-positron (ee−) colliders has made it possible to produce and study large samples of the electroweak gauge bosons W{sup {plus minus}} and Z°. We expect that these facilities will enable very precise tests of the GWS theory to be performed in the near future. In keeping with the theme of this Institute, Physics at the 100 GeV Mass Scale, these lectures will explore the current status and the near-future prospects of these experiments.