Particles Strings And Cosmology Proceedings Of The John Hopkins Workshop On Current Problems In Particle Theory 19 And The Pascos Interdisciplinary Symposium 5

Written primarily for researchers and graduate students who are new in this emerging field, this book develops the necessary tools so that readers can follow the latest advances in this subject. Readers are first guided to examine the basic informations on nucleon-nucleon collisions and the use of the nucleus as an arena to study the interaction of one nucleon with another. A good survey of the relation between nucleon-nucleon and nucleus-nucleus collisions provides the proper comparison to study phenomena involving the more exotic quark-gluon plasma. Properties of the quark-gluon plasma and signatures for its detection are discussed to aid future searches and exploration for this exotic matter. Recent experimental findings are summarised.

PASCOS is an interdisciplinary symposium on the interface of of Particle physics, String theory and Cosmology. Over the past two decades these three disciplines have increasingly become closer. Historically there was always a strong overlap between particle physics and cosmology. This connection has become even stronger with the realization that some of the fundamental issues in cosmology such as the presence of dark matter and dark energy may possibly find a resolution only via new theories of particle physics. At the same time string theory has begun to play an increasingly important role in particle physics as a possible framework for building unified models of particle interaction including gravity. In recent years we have seen an increasing overlap between cosmology and string theory and currently the area of string cosmology is one of the most active fields of research. PASCOS 2005 aimed to provide coherent discussions of recent developments on the interface of the three disciplines and also on their interconnections. In particular, superstring aspects in low energy particle theory (SUSY) and cosmological applications (moduli stabilization) are extensively covered in this volume. Topics include dark matter and dark energy, baryogenesis, flavor and CP violation, neutrino physics, supersymmetry and extra dimensions, flux compactification, string model building, as well as brane cosmology.

An accelerating convergence of interests of particle physics and modern experimental and theoretical astrophysics has been witnessed in the past few years. One of the focal points is the observation and phenomenological characterization of Dark Matter from Galactic to the large scale structure of the Universe. Particle physics provides detailed predictions for the cosmological impact of various dark matter candidates. The other central subjects are neutrino astronomy and cosmic ray reactions which provide valuable information both on stellar structure (solar neutrinos) and on the nature of extreme high energy particle interactions. The lectures presented here represent important new contributions to all these fields.