The twelfth Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on Techniques and Con cepts of High Energy Physics was held at the Hotel on the Cay in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands in June 2002. The Institute attracted 11 lecturers and 42 advanced PhD students and recent PhD recipients in experimental particle physics from 14 different countries. The scientific program covered a broad sweep of topics that are expected to remain of interest for many years to come. The topics in this volume complement those in earlier volumes (published by Kluwer) and should be of interest to many physicists. The main financial support for the Institute was provided by the Scientific Affairs Division of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Institute was eo-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the Florida State Univer sity (FSU) - Offices of the Provost and the Dean of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Physics and the FSU High Energy Physics Group - and the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP, Moscow).

Klappentext

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, held in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, USA, 13-24 June 2002

Inhalt
THE STANDARD MODEL AND THE TOP QUARK.- 1 Introduction.- 2 The Standard Model.- 3 Virtual Top Quark.- 4 Top Strong Interactions.- 5 Top Weak Interactions.- NEUTRINO PHYSICS.- 1 Lecture 1: Neutrino Masses.- 2 Lecture 2: Neutrino Oscillations.- 3 Lecture 3: Solar and Atmospheric Neutrinos.- THE SUPERSYMMETRIC UNIVERSE.- 1 Getting Motivated.- 2 Simple Models.- 3 Towards Realistic Models.- 4 Phenomenology.- 5 Lepton Flavour Violation.- 6 Concluding Remarks.- WEIGHING THE UNIVERSE.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Dark Matter.- COSMOLOGY, INFLATION AND THE PHYSICS OF NOTHING.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Resurrecting Einstein's greatest blunder.- 3 The Cosmic Microwave Background.- 4 Inflation.- 5 Looking for signs of quantum gravity in inflation.- 6 Conclusion.- SILICON DETECTORS.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Silicon Strip Detector Principles of Operation.- 3 Silicon Strip Detector Performance.- 4 Radiation Damage to Silicon Devices.- 5 Silicon Sensor Fabrication.- 6 Construction of Detector Modules.- 7 Front-end Electronics.- 8 Silicon Detectors in Experiments.- 9 Other Types of Silicon Detector.- 10 Conclusions.- GASEOUS DETECTORS: THEN AND NOW.- 1 Introduction and Historical Overview.- 2 Single Wire Proportional Chamber (SWPC).- 3 Multiwire Proportional Chambers.- 4 Drift and Diffusion of Charges in Gases Under the Influence of and Electric Field.- 5 Large Volume Tracking.- 6 Limitations in Wire Chambers and Future Perspectives.- NUCLEI AT THE BORDERLINE OF THEIR EXISTENCE.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Nuclear Shells and the Stability of Heavy Elements.- 3 Reactions of Synthesis.- 4 Strategies of Experiments and Experimental Equipment.- 5 Experiments Devoted to the Synthesis of Superheavy Nuclei 48Ca + 244Pu Reaction.- 6 Experiments with the 248Cm-target. Synthesis of Element 116.- 7 Even-odd Isotopes.Experiments with 238U and 242Pu.- 8 Comparison with Theoretical Predictions 369.- 9 Consequences and Prospects.- PARTICIPANTS.