This book attempts to trace the key experimental developments that led to the discovery of weak neutral currents in 1973 and the W, Z bosons in 1983, all of the results of which culminated in the identification of the unified-electroweak force.

Annotation Proceedings of a conference held at Santa Monica, California, in February 1993. Papers are grouped in eight sections on: early discoveries in weak interactions, early developments in weak interaction theory, discovery of weak neutral currents, perspectives in the electroweak theory, flavor changing weak neutral currents, weak neutral currents and supernovae, weak neutral currents and biological handedness, and colliders and discoveries with them. No index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

This conference celebrated the discovery of neutral currents in neutrino interactions twenty years ago. History will mark the 1973 decisive experiments as the turning point of a new era in theoretical and experimental physics. The participants in the discovery retrace its circumstances and genesis, and all the present aspects of its heritage are reviewed: particle physics (the standard model has to date not been invalidated by the most precise experiments at LEP), atomic physics and astrophysics.

The book is a compilation of the most important experimental results achieved during the past 60 years at CERN - from the mid-1950s to the latest discovery of the Higgs particle. Covering the results from the early accelerators at CERN to those most recent at the LHC, the contents provide an excellent review of the achievements of this outstanding laboratory. Not only presented is the impressive scientific progress achieved during the past six decades, but also demonstrated is the special way in which successful international collaboration exists at CERN.

Supernovae, hypernovae and gamma-ray bursts are among the most energetic explosions in the universe. The light from these outbursts is, for a brief time, comparable to billions of stars and can outshine the host galaxy within which the explosions reside. Most of the heavy elements in the universe are formed within these energetic explosions. Surprisingly enough, the collapse of massive stars is the primary source of not just one, but all three of these explosions. As all of these explosions arise from stellar collapse, to understand one requires an understanding of the others. Stellar Collapse marks the first book to combine discussions of all three phenomena, focusing on the similarities and differences between them. Designed for graduate students and scientists newly entering this field, this book provides a review not only of these explosions, but the detailed physical models used to explain them from the numerical techniques used to model neutrino transport and gamma-ray transport to the detailed nuclear physics behind the evolution of the collapse to the observations that have led to these three classes of explosions.

In recent years, the study of weak interaction and its relationship with the other fundamnetal interactions of nature has progressed rapidly. Weak interactions of leptons and quarks provides an up-to-date account of this continuing research. The Introduction discusses early models and historical developments in the understanding of the weak force. The authors then give a clear presentation of the modern theoretical basis of weak interactions, going on to discuss recent advances in the field. These include development of the eletroweak gauge theory, and the discovery of neutral currents and of a host of new particles. There is also a chapter devoted entirely to neutrino astrophysics. Its straightforward style and its emphasis on experimental results will make this book an excellent source for students (problem sets are included at the end of each chapter) and experimentalists in the field. Physicists whose speciality lies outside the study of elementary particle physics will also find it useful.

The discoveries of neutral currents and of the W and Z bosons marked a watershed in the history of CERN. They established the validity of the electroweak theory and convinced physicists of the importance of renormalizable non-Abelian gauge theories of fundamental interactions. The articles collected in this book have been written by distinguished physicists who contributed in a crucial way to these developments. The book provides a historical account of those discoveries and of the construction and testing of the Standard Model. It also contains a discussion of the future of particle physics and gives an updated status of the LHC and its detectors currently being built at CERN. The book addresses those readers interested in particle physics including the educated public.