Current Perspectives in High Energy Physics

Current research in High Energy Physics focuses on a number of enigmatic issues that go beyond the very successful Standard Model of particle physics. Among these are the problem of neutrino mass, the (as yet) unobserved Higgs particle, the quark-gluon plasma, quantum aspects of gravity, and the so--called hierarchy problem. Satisfactory resolution of these important questions will take much research effort in both theory and experiment. The Science & Engineering Research Council, Department of Science & Technology has sponsored a series of SERC Schools in Theoretical High Energy Physics over the past several years, to provide instruction and training to graduate students working for research degrees. This book is an outcome of the schools held at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata in 2000, and at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad in 2001. Based on lectures by active researchers in the field---Rajiv Gavai, Debashis Ghoshal, Dileep Jatkar, Anjan Joshipura, Biswarup Mukhopadhyaya, Sreerup Raychaudhuri, Saurabh Rindani, Ashoke Sen and Sandip Trivedi---the nine chapters comprising the book deal with a number of topics that range from the fundamentals of the field, to problems and questions that are at the very forefront of current research. This volume will thus be useful to the advanced graduate student who has familiarity with quantum field theory, the Standard Model, and the general theory of relativity, and will also provide a useful reference for working scientists.

Contenu

1. Physics of Massive Neutrinos; Anjan S. Joshipura; 1.1 Introduction. 1.2 Neutrino masses: basic formalism. 1.3 Neutrino mass measurements: direct detection. 1.4 Neutrino mass measurements: oscillations. 1.5 Neutrino mass spectrum from experiments. 1.6 Models of neutrino masses. 1.7 Summary. 2. Higgs Physics; Saurabh D. Rindani; 2.1 Introduction. 2.2 The Standard Model Higgs boson. 2.3 Theoretical constraints on the mass of the SM Higgs. 2.4 Experimental constraints on the mass of the SM Higgs. 2.5 Decays of the SM Higgs boson. 2.6 Production of Higgs at e + e - colliders. 2.7 Present status and outlook. 3. CP-violation: A Pedagogical Introduction; Biswarup Mukhopadhyaya; 3.1 Introduction. 3.2 Parity, charge conjugation and time reversal. 3.3 A complex phase causes CP-violation. 3.4 CP-violation in the Standard Model. 3.5 The unitarity triangles. 3.6 The neutral kaon system. 3.7 CP-violation in neutral kaons: observables. 3.8 P-violating parameters from the Standard Model. 3.9 CP-violation in B-meson decays. 4. Lectures on Perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics; Compiled by Debashis Ghoshal & V. Ravindran; 5. Quark-Gluon Plasma; Rajiv V. Gavai; 5.1 Introduction. 5.2 QGP from QCD. 5.3 QGP from QCD II. 5.4 QGP and lattice QCD. 5.5 Heavy ion collisions. 5.6 Signals of QGP. 5.7 Summary. 6. N = 1 Supersymmetric Gauge Theories; Debashis Ghoshal; 6.1 Introduction & the supersymmetry algebra. 6.2 Representations of supersymmetry on states. 6.3 Superspace & superfields. 6.4 Chiral & vector superfields. 6.5 More on vector superfields. 6.6 Wess-Zumino model, supersymmetry breaking. 6.7 Lagrangians of supersymmetric gauge theories. 6.8 Supersymmetric QCD-classical theory. 6.9 Quantum corrections & effective action I. 6.10 Quantum corrections & effective action II. 6.11 Appendix: Fierz identities. 7. Introduction to AdS/CFT Duality; Dileep P. Jatkar; 7.1 Introduction. 7.2 The large N duality conjecture. 7.3 N = 4 Super-Yang-Mills theory. 7.4 Collective coordinates. 7.5 Kaluza-Klein reduction. 8. New Scenarios for Physics Beyond the Standard Model; Sandip P. Trivedi; 8.1 Introduction. 8.2 The ADD scenario. 8.3 The Randall-Sundrum scenario. 9. Brane-World Phenomenology; Sreerup Raychaudhuri; 9.1 Gravity coupling to matter. 9.2 Linearized gravity. 9.3 Gravitational fields in the ADD model. 9.4 ADD Feynman rules. 9.5 ADD phenomenology; Contributors; Index