The book reviews the current status of tau physics. It addresses the properties of the tau lepton and summarizes results achieved with tau leptons in the fields of precision tests of the Standard Model, investigations of the strong interaction and many searches for new physics beyond the scope of the Standard Model.

The II International Workshop on Tau Lepton Physics was held in Ohio, USA in September 1992. Its purpose is to gather the experts on tau lepton physics to examine the current understanding of the tau lepton physics and to assess future prospects. A particular emphasis of the Workshop was a detailed examination of the '1-prong problem': the discrepancy between the inclusive measurement of one-charged-particle decay branching ratio and the sum of the exclusive decays. The Workshop also stimulated new ideas on tests of the Standard Model using the third generation lepton and assessed the future prospects of the lepton physics.

This 2nd edition is an extensive update of "B Decays?. The revisions are necessary because of the extensive amount of new data and new theoretical ideas. This book reviews what is known about b-quark decays and also looks at what can be learned in the future.The importance of this research area is increasing, as evidenced by the approval of the luminosity upgrade for CESR and the asymmetric B factories at SLAC and KEK, and the possibility of experiments at hadron colliders.The key experimental observations made thus far, measurement of the lifetimes of the different B species, B0-B0 mixing, the discovery of ?Penguin? mediated decays, and the extraction of the CKM matrix elements Vub and Vcb from semileptonic decays, as well as more mundane results, are described in great detail by the experimentalists who have been closely involved with making the measurements. Theoretical progress in understanding b-quark decays using HQET and lattice gauge techniques are described by theorists who have developed and used these techniques.Synthesizing the experimental and theoretical information, several articles discuss the implications for the ?Standard Model? and how further tests can be done using measurements of CP violation in the B system.

This book provides a self-contained description of the measurements of the magnetic dipole moments of the electron and muon, along with a discussion of the measurements of the fine structure constant, and the theory associated with magnetic and electric dipole moments. Also included are the searches for a permanent electric dipole moment of the electron, muon, neutron and atomic nuclei. The related topic of the transition moment for lepton flavor violating processes, such as neutrinoless muon or tauon decays, and the search for such processes are included as well. The papers, written by many of the leading authors in this field, cover both the experimental and theoretical aspects of these topics. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Historical Introduction to Electric and Mangnetic Moments (367 KB). Contents: Historical Introduction (B L Roberts); Electromagnetic Dipole Moments and New Physics (A Czarnecki & W J Marciano); Lepton g OCo 2 from 1947 to Present (T Kinoshita); Analytic QED Calculations of the Anomalous Magnetic Moment of the Electron (S Laporta & E Remiddi); Measurements of the Electron Magnetic Moment (G Gabrielse); Determining the Fine Structure Constant (G Gabrielse); Helium Fine Structure Theory for the Determination of (K Pachucki & J Sapirstein); Hadronic Vacuum Polarization and the Lepton Anomalous Magnetic Moments (M Davier); The Hadronic Light-by-Light Contribution to a, e (J Prades et al.); General Prescriptions for One-loop Contributions to a e, (K R Lynch); Measurement of the Muon ( g OCo 2) Value (J P Miller et al.); Muon ( g OCo 2) and Physics Beyond the Standard Model (D StAckinger); Probing CP Violation with Electric Dipole Moments (M Pospelov & A Ritz); The Electric Dipole Moment of the Electron (E D Commins & D DeMille); Neutron EDM Experiments (S K Lamoreaux & R Golub); Nuclear Electric Dipole Moments (W C Griffith et al.); EDM Measurements in Storage Rings (B L Roberts et al.); Models of Lepton Flavor Violation (Y Okada); Search for the Charged Lepton-Flavor-Violating Transition Moments l OaAE l OC (Y Kuno). Readership: Researchers and graduate students in particle physics, atomic physics and nuclear physics, as well as experts working in the field

It is not an exaggeration to say that one of the most exciting predictions of Einstein's theory of gravitation is that there may exist "black holes": putative objects whose gravitational fields are so strong that no physical bodies or signals can break free of their pull and escape. The proof that black holes do exist, and an analysis of their properties, would have a significance going far beyond astrophysics. Indeed, what is involved is not just the discovery of yet another even if extremely remarkable, astro physical object, but a test of the correctness of our understanding of the properties of space and time in extremely strong gravitational fields. Theoretical research into the properties of black holes, and into the possible corol laries of the hypothesis that they exist, has been carried out with special vigor since the beginning of the 1970's. In addition to those specific features of black holes that are important for the interpretation of their possible astrophysical manifestations, the theory has revealed a number of unexpected characteristics of physical interactions involving black holes. By the middle of the 1980's a fairly detailed understanding had been achieved of the properties of the black holes, their possible astrophysical manifestations, and the specifics of the various physical processes involved. Even though a completely reliable detection of a black hole had not yet been made at that time, several objects among those scrutinized by astrophysicists were considered as strong candidates to be confirmed as being black holes.

Editors Laurie Brown, Max Dresden, Lillian Hoddeson and Michael Riordan have brought together a distinguished group of elementary particle physicists and historians of science to explore the recent history of particle physics. Based on a conference held at Stanford University, this is the third volume of a series recounting the history of particle physics and offers the most up-to-date account of the rise of the Standard Model, which explains the microstructure of the world in terms of quarks and leptons and their interactions. Major contributors include Steven Weinberg, Murray Gell-Mann, Michael Redhead, Silvan Schweber, Leon Lederman and John Heilbron. The wide-ranging articles explore the detailed scientific experiments, the institutional settings in which they took place, and the ways in which the many details of the puzzle fit together to account for the Standard Model.