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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 Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa 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.

In the last 20 years the disciplines of particle physics, astrophysics, nuclear physics and cosmology have grown together in an unprecedented way. A brilliant example is nuclear double beta decay, an extremely rare radioactive decay mode, which is one of the most exciting and important fields of research in particle physics at present and the flagship of non-accelerator particle physics. While already discussed in the 1930s, only in the 1980s was it understood that neutrinoless double beta decay can yield information on the Majorana mass of the neutrino, which has an impact on the structure of space-time. Today, double beta decay is indispensable for solving the problem of the neutrino mass spectrum and the structure of the neutrino mass matrix. The potential of double beta decay has also been extended such that it is now one of the most promising tools for probing beyond-the-standard-model particle physics, and gives access to energy scales beyond the potential of future accelerators. This book presents the breathtaking manner in which achievements in particle physics have been made from a nuclear physics process. Consisting of a 150-page highly factual overview of the field of double beta decay and a 1200-page collection of the most important original articles, the book outlines the development of double beta decay research theoretical and experimental from its humble beginnings until its most recent achievements, with its revolutionary consequences for the theory of particle physics. It further presents an outlook on the exciting future of the field.

The implications of the latest results from high energy experiments as well as non-accelerator experiments are discussed in this proceedings. Emphasis is given to neutrino physics, tests of the standard electroweak theory, and its extensions. Perspectives for the physics of the new decade are also considered.