This volume presents the experimental and theoretical methods of studying soft interaction physics in high energy collisions. The topics include: dynamical and Bose-Einstein correlations, multiplicity fluctuation, soft photons, disoriented chiral condensate, self-similarity and self-affine behaviors, wavelet analysis, intermittency, chaos, and phase transition.

Multiparticle dynamics is tightly connected with the fundamental properties of the QCD vacuum. This was reflected in the Scientific Programme of the XXVIII International Symposium on Multiparticle Dynamics. Emphasis was given during the sessions to the collective phenomena at high energies, including: fluctuations and correlations, quark-gluon plasma, QCD phase transitions (fractals, intermittency, wavelets), the QCD structure of the Pomeron, and new aspects of multiplicity distributions.

This book covers various experimental and theoretical aspects of multiparticle production in high energy interactions from lepton-lepton, lepton-hadron, hadron-hadron, hadron-nucleus and heavy ion collisons. This is the first time that data from CERN LEP, FNAL, DESY, BNL AGS, CERN SPS and BNL RHIC have been collected in a single volume. Not only accelerator-induced reactions but also cosmic ray interactions of very high energy are discussed, and the up-to-date theoretical interpretations are summarized.

Particle production is an important topic in nuclear and particle physics. At high energies, particle production is considered to proceed via parton branching and subsequent fragmentation into hadrons. The study of the dynamics of this process and the study of the structure of hadrons in the context of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) belong to the challenges of the standard model of elementary particle physics, requiring new, nonperturba tive approaches in field theory. Within a nucleus, many-body dynamics is important and particle production may be used to determine many features of a non-equilibrium quantum system at low or high temperatures. At this Advanced Study Institute the different aspects of particle pro duction were expanded upon in a series of lectures given by experts in their fields, covering topics ranging from near-threshold meson production in proton-proton collisions to correlations in multi-GeV jet fragmentation in high-energy scattering processes and signals of a quark-gluon plasma formed in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Strong emphasis was placed not only on state of the art research, but also on the necessary physics back ground. The lectures were supplemented by problem sets and discussion sessions. There was also time for students to present short contributions on their research.

The topics in this volume include: intermittency; correlations; QCD; phase transition; soft photons and Monte Carlo simulations of soft processes.