This book provides insight into concept of the weak interaction and its integration into the conceptual structure of elementary particle physics. It exhibits the important role of the weak interaction in nuclear, particle and astrophysics together with the close connection between these areas.

A useful scientific theory, claimed Einstein, must be explicable to any intelligent person. In Deep Down Things, experimental particle physicist Bruce Schumm has taken this dictum to heart, providing in clear, straightforward prose an elucidation of the Standard Model of particle physics—a theory that stands as one of the crowning achievements of twentieth-century science. In this one-of-a-kind book, the work of many of the past century's most notable physicists, including Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, Feynman, Gell-Mann, and Weinberg, is knit together in a thorough and accessible exposition of the revolutionary notions that underlie our current view of the fundamental nature of the physical world. Schumm, who has spent much of his life emmersed in the subatomic world, goes far beyond a mere presentation of the "building blocks" of matter, bringing to life the remarkable connection between the ivory tower world of the abstract mathematician and the day-to-day, life-enabling properties of the natural world. Schumm leaves us with an insight into the profound open questions of particle physics, setting the stage for understanding the progress the field is poised to make over the next decade or two. Introducing readers to the world of particle physics, Deep Down Things opens new realms within which are many clues to unraveling the mysteries of the universe.

This book is devoted to the broad subject of flavor physics, embracing the question of what distinguishes one type of elementary particles from another. The articles range from the forefront of formal theory (treating the physics of extra dimensions) to details of particle detectors. Although special emphasis is placed on the physics of kaons, charmed and beauty particles, top quarks, and neutrinos, the articles also dealing with electroweak physics, quantum chromodynamics, supersymmetry, and dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking. Violations of fundamental symmetries such as time reversal invariance are discussed in the context of neutral kaons, beauty particles, electric dipole moments, and parity violation in atoms. The physics of the CabibboOCoKobayashiOCoMaskawa matrix and of quark masses are described in some detail, both from the standpoint of present and future experimental knowledge and from a more fundamental viewpoint, where physicists are still searching for the correct theory. Contents: The Electroweak Theory (C Quigg); CP Violation (L Wolfenstein); Precision Electroweak Physics (Y-K Kim); Kaon and Charm Physics: Theory (G Buchalla); Kaon Physics: Experiments (T Barker); The Status of Mixing in the Charm Sector (J P Cumalat); Basics of QCD Perturbation Theory (D E Soper); Lattice QCD and the CKM Matrix (T DeGrand); The Strong CP Problem (M Dine); A Bibliography of Atomic Parity Violation and Electric Dipole Moment Experiments (C E Wieman); The CKM Matrix and the Heavy Quark Expansion (A F Falk); CP Violation in B Decays (J L Rosner); Lectures on the Theory of Nonleptonic B Decays (M Neubert); Asymmetrical e Collisions (A Roodman); Pathological Science (S Stone); Top Physics (E H Simmons); Neutrino Mass, Mixing, and Oscillation (B Kayser); Flavor in Supersymmetry (H Murayama); Technicolor and Compositeness (R S Chivukula); Models of Fermion Masses (G G Ross); Physics of Extra Dimensions (J D Lykken). Readership: Graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and senior researchers in high energy physics."

This book, written by leading experts of the field, gives an excellent up-to-date overview of modern neutrino physics and is useful for scientists and graduate students alike. The book starts with a history of neutrinos and then develops from the fundamentals to the direct determination of masses and lifetimes. The role of neutrinos in fundamental astrophysical problems is discussed in detail.