For more than 25 years the Standard Model of particle physics has withstood the confrontation with experimental results of increasing precision, but this does not imply that the Standard Model can answer all questions about the ultimate constituents of nature. This book presents a critical examination of the latest experimental results and confronts them with the predictions of the Standard Model.
Besides discussions of accelerator results from LEP, HERA and the TEVATRON, attention is paid to the unresolved problems of neutrino oscillations, CP violation, dark matter and cosmology. New...

Topological defects formed at symmetry-breaking phase transitions play an important role in many different fields of physics. They appear in many condensed-matter systems at low temperature; examples include vortices in superfluid helium-4, a rich variety of defects in helium-3, quantized mag netic flux tubes in type-II superconductors, and disclination lines and other defects in liquid crystals. In cosmology, unified gauge theories of particle interactions suggest a sequence of phase transitions in the very early uni verse some of which may lead to defect formation. In astrophysics, defects...

The importance of hydrogen bond interactions in many chemical and biological processes such as aqueous solvation and reaction, atmospheric aerosol formation and reactivity, and enzyme functionality has fueled an increasing interest in the field of hydrogen bonded liquids. Clusters of hydrogen bonded systems serve as prototypes in obtaining a molecular level understanding of their stability and chemical reactivity via the exploration of their structural and dynamical properties. Since they probe the fundamental interactions at the molecular level, they furthermore offer the advantage of...

The theory of simple and complex fluids has made considerable recent progress, due to the emergence of new concepts and theoretical tools, and also to the availability of a large body of new experimental data on increas ingly complex systems, as well as far-reaching methodological developments in numerical simulations. This AS aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of the most significant theoretical developments, supplemented by a few presentations of cutting-edge simulation and experimental work. The impact of the Institute in the overall landscape of Statistical Mechanics received an...

The mathematical theory of "open" dynamical systems is a creation of the twentieth century. Its humble beginnings focused on ideas of Laplace transforms applied to linear problems of automatic control and to the analysis and synthesis of electrical circuits. However during the second half of the century, it flowered into a field based on an array of sophisticated mathematical concepts and techniques from algebra, nonlinear analysis and differential geometry. The central notion is that of a dynamical system that exchanges matter, energy, or information with its surroundings, i.e. an "open"...

Quantum mechanical laws are well documented at the level of a single or a few atoms and are here extended to systems containing 102 to 1010 electrons - still much smaller than the usual macroscopic objects, but behaving in a manner similar to a single atom. Besides the purely theoretical interest, such systems pose a challenge to the achievement of the ultimate microelectronic applications. The present volume presents an up-to-date account of the physics, technology and expected applications of quantum effects in solid-state mesoscopic structures. Physical phenomena include the Aharonov-Bohm...

As recent developments have shown, supersymmetric quantum field theory and string theory are intimately related, with advances in one area often shedding light on the other. The organising ideas of most of these advances are the notion of duality and the physics of higher dimensional objects or p-branes.
The topics covered in the present volume include duality in field theory, in particular in supersymmetric field theory and supergravity, and in string theory. The Seiberg-Witten theory and its recent developments are also covered in detail. A large fraction of the volume is...

A summary of some of the most important aspects of supramolecular science, from molecular recognition in chemical and biological systems to supramolecular devices, materials and catalysis. The 17 chapters cover calixarenes, catenanes, cavitands, cholophanes, dendrimers, membranes and self-assembly systems, molecular modelling, molecular level devices, organic materials, peptides and protein surfaces, recognition of carbohydrates, rotaxanes, supramolecular catalysis. A chapter written by J.-M. Lehn indicates the future prospects for the entire field.