Sergio Ferrara - Böcker

This is the first volume in a series of books on the general theme of Supersymmetric Mechanics; the series is based on lectures and discussions held in 2005 and 2006 at the INFN-Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati. This volume supplies a pedagogical introduction, at the non-expert level, to the attractor mechanism in space-time singularities. After a qualitative overview, explicit examples realizing the attractor mechanism are treated at length.

Supersymmetry was created by the physicists in the 1970's to give a unified treatment of fermions and bosons, the basic constituents of matter. Since then its mathematical structure has been recognized as that of a new development in geometry, and mathematicians have busied themselves with exploring this aspect. This volume collects recent advances in this field, both from a physical and a mathematical point of view, with an accent on a rigorous treatment of the various questions raised.

This is the first volume in a series of books on the general theme of Supersymmetric Mechanics; the series is based on lectures and discussions held in 2005 and 2006 at the INFN-Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati. This volume supplies a pedagogical introduction, at the non-expert level, to the attractor mechanism in space-time singularities. After a qualitative overview, explicit examples realizing the attractor mechanism are treated at length.

The success of the standard model in explaining low energy (≈ 100GeV) physics within the framework of spontaneously broken Yang-Mills theory has given physicists the hope that the Einstein dream of a unified theory of fundamental interactions might be achieved using geometrical methods of local symmetry principles supplemented by consistency requirements such as renormalization, unitarity and, most crucially, compatibility with present low energy data.Merging these principles with the quantum-mechanical notions of spin and statistics led physicists further to develop new theories in the last fifteen years for which the gauge symmetry principle is extended to incorporate supersymmetry and relativistic extended objects - the most famous example being superstrings propagating in curved space-time and having supergravity as their effective field theory.The proceedings represent the latest highlights in the field reported on by active researchers working in this particular area in addition to discussions on future perspectives.

The “Superworld” is a subject of formidable interest for the immediate future of subnuclear physics to which Zichichi has contributed with a series of important papers of phenomenological and theoretical nature. These papers represent a must-have collection, not only for their originality but also for their complete analysis of expected scenarios on the basis of today's knowledge of physics.The contributions are divided into two parts. The first deals with the problem of the convergence of the three fundamental forces of nature measured by the gauge couplings, with the onset of the energy threshold for the production of the lightest supersymmetric particles and with the existence of a gap between the string scale and the GUT scale. The second deals with the study of a theoretical model capable of including supersymmetry with the minimum number of parameters (possibly one), and agreeing with all the conditions established by string theories — this turns out to be a “one-parameter no-scale supergravity” model whose experimental consequences are investigated for present and future facilities aimed at the discovery of the first example of the superparticle.Sergio Ferrara and Michael Duff, two of the founders of supergravity, superstring and M-theories, introduce the fascinating subject of supersymmetry, superspace and the superworld; the presentation of the seminal papers by Zichichi and his collaborators is made by two eminent physicists: Rudolf Mössbauer and Sergio Ferrara.

These volumes, a collection of a series of articles with commentary notes by the editor, describe supersymmetric theories for particle interactions from the earliest developments to the latest advancements. The book, divided into two volumes, will mainly focus its attention on subjects related to the application of N = 1 supersymmetry and supergravity to unified theories, encompassing all fundamental forces of nature. Particular emphasis is given to the ultraviolet cancellations in supersymmetric field theories, naturalness and hierarchy of scales, spontaneous symmetry breaking, super-Higgs effect and its applications to high energy physics. Both perturbative and non-perturbative aspects of supersymmetric field theories are covered. Over a hundred seminar papers are reprinted in these volumes.