Weinberg Steven Weinberg – författare

If standard gravitational theory is correct, then most of the matter in the universe is in an unidentified form which does not emit enough light to have been detected by current instrumentation. This proceedings was devoted to a discussion of the so-called “missing matter” problem in the universe. The goal of the School was to make current research work on unseen matter accessible to students of faculties without prior experience in this area. Due to the pedagogical nature of the School and the strong interactions between students and the lectures, the written lectures included in this volume often contain techniques and explanations not found in more formal journal publications.

Supernovae are highly energetic phenomena for which it is necessary to use simultaneously particle physics, nuclear physics and hydrodynamics to study the creation of the strong explosions involved. Supernovae synthesize heavy elements and in some cases lead to the formation of neutron stars or black holes. Recent progress has revealed new classes of explosions, and new insights into the evolution and explosion mechanisms including that of the dramatic event SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Major questions still remain, concerning the evolution of massive stars in binary systems, the nature of gravitational collapse, and the physical processes involved in the thermonuclear explosion of degenerate stars. This School explores our current understanding of supernovae, and areas of active study.

This volume deals with the exciting new subject of superstrings. It contains important lectures by some of the leading workers in this field and should be exceptionally useful to the physics community.

In the last few years there has been a revival of interest in the old idea that spacetime may have more than four dimensions, all but four having been curled up into a small circumference. In this view the various particles and interactions we see at ordinary energies arise from a simple, perhaps purely geometrical, theory in higher dimensions. This idea has profound implications for elementary particle physics and cosmology, and raises challenging problems of mathematics. These matters were the topic of the Second Jerusalem Winter School of Theoretical Physics.

The last decade has seen fruitful interactions between elementary particle physics and cosmology. Developments in the theories of broken symmetry, gauge interactions and supersymmetry have opened up new possibilities for the history of the early universe, while astronomical data on cosmic expansion, baryon-entropy ratio, galactic structure and elemental abundances have set constraints on particle theories. The First Jerusalem Winter School aimed at presenting a systematic account of these topics, from the physical and astronomical fundamentals to the latest progress.

If standard gravitational theory is correct, then most of the matter in the universe is in an unidentified form which does not emit enough light to have been detected by current instrumentation. This book is the second editon of the lectures given at the 4th Jerusalem Winter School for Theoretical Physics, with new material added. The lectures are devoted to the “missing matter” problem in the universe, the search to understand dark matter. The goal of this volume is to make current research work on unseen matter accessible to students without prior experience in this area and to provide insights for experts in related research fields. Due to the pedagogical nature of the original lectures and the intense discussions between the lecturers and the students, the written lectures included in this volume often contain techniques and explanations not found in more formal journal publications.

This invaluable book explores the delicate interplay between geometry and statistical mechanics in materials such as microemulsions, wetting and growth interfaces, bulk lyotropic liquid crystals, chalcogenide glasses and sheet polymers, using tools from the fields of polymer physics, differential geometry, field theory and critical phenomena. Several chapters have been updated relative to the classic 1989 edition. Moreover, there are now three entirely new chapters — on effects of anisotropy and heterogeneity, on fixed connectivity membranes and on triangulated surface models of fluctuating membranes.

In the past few years there has been much study of random two dimensional surfaces. These provide simple models of string theories with a few degrees of freedom, as well as toy models of quantum gravity. They have possible applications to the statistical mechanics of phase boundaries and to the development of an effective string description of QCD.Recently, methods have been developed to treat these theories nonperturbatively, based on discrete triangulations of the surfaces that can be generated by simple matrix models. Exact solutions with a rich mathematical structure have emerged. All these matters are discussed fully in this book.