This book collects the Proceedings of the Workshop "Incontri di Fisica delle Alte Energie (IFAE) 2007, Napoli, 11-13 April 2007". Presentations, both theoretical and experimental, addressed the status of Physics of the Standard Model and beyond, Flavour physics, Neutrino and Astroparticle physics, and new technology in high energy physics. Special emphasis amid this rich exchange of ideas was given to the expectations of the forthcoming Large Hadron Collider.

This book collects the Proceedings of the Workshop "Incontri di Fisica delle Alte Energie (IFAE) 2006, Pavia, 19-21 Aprile 2006". The workshop is the fifth edition of a series of workshops on fundamental research in particle physics, as carried on at the most important international laboratories, and possible fallouts in medical and technological applications. Researches in this field aim at identifying the most elementary constituents of matter.

The three neutrinos are ghostly elementary particles that exist all across the Universe. Though every second billions of them fly through us, they are extremely hard to detect. We used to think they had no mass, but recently discovered that in fact they have a tiny mass. The quest for the neutrino mass scale and mass ordering (specifying how the three masses are distributed) is an extremely exciting one, and will open the door towards new physics operating at energy scales we can only ever dream of reaching on Earth. This thesis explores the use of measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (the oldest light reaching us, a snapshot of the infant Universe) and maps of millions of galaxies to go after the neutrino mass scale and mass ordering. Neutrinos might teach us something about the mysterious dark energy powering the accelerated expansion of the Universe, or about cosmic inflation, which seeded the initial conditions for the Universe. Though extremely baffling, neutrinos are also an exceptionally exciting area of research, and cosmological observations promise to reveal a great deal about these elusive particles in the coming years.

All papers in these proceedings are in English. IFAE is an annual conference on high energy physics. Distinguished scientists discuss relevant topics of particle physics, cosmic ray and neutrino physics, as well as detector and accelerator technologies. Topics included are: the standard model, SUSY and beyond the standard model, heavy flavor physics, neutrinos and cosmic rays, as well as detectors and new technologies.

This book presents a semiotic study of the re-elaboration of Christian narratives and values in a corpus of Italian novels published after the Second Vatican Council (1960s). It tackles the complex set of ideas expressed by Italian writers about the biblical narration of human origins and traditional religious language and ritual, the perceived clash between the immanent and transcendent nature and role of the Church, and the problematic notion of sanctity emerging from contemporary narrative.

This comprehensive work thoroughly introduces and reviews the set of results from Belle and BaBar - after more than two decades of independent and complementary work - all the way from the detectors and the analysis tools used, up to the physics results, and the interpretation of these results. The world’s two giant B Factory collaborations, Belle at KEK and BaBar at SLAC, have successfully completed their main mission to discover and quantify CP violation in the decays of B mesons. CP violation is a necessary requirement to distinguish unambiguously between matter and antimatter. The shared primary objective of the two B Factory experiments was to determine the shape of the so-called unitarity triangle, an abstract triangle representing interactions of quarks, the elementary constituents of matter. The area of the triangle is a measure of the amount of CP violation associated with the weak force. Many other measurements have been performed by the B Factories and are also discussed in this work.

This text gives an introduction to particle physics at a level accessible to advanced undergraduate students. It is based on lectures given to 4th year physics students over a number of years, and reflects the feedback from the students. The aim is to explain the theoretical and experimental basis of the Standard Model (SM) of Particle Physics with the simplest mathematical treatment possible. All the experimental discoveries that led to the understanding of the SM relied on particle detectors and most of them required advanced particle accelerators. A unique feature of this book is that it gives a serious introduction to the fundamental accelerator and detector physics, which is currently only available in advanced graduate textbooks. The mathematical tools that are required such as group theory are covered in one chapter. A modern treatment of the Dirac equation is given in which the free particle Dirac equation is seen as being equivalent to the Lorentz transformation. The idea of generating the SM interactions from fundamental gauge symmetries is explained. The core of the book covers the SM. The tools developed are used to explain its theoretical basis and a clear discussion is given of the critical experimental evidence which underpins it. A thorough account is given of quark flavour and neutrino oscillations based on published experimental results, including some from running experiments. A simple introduction to the Higgs sector of the SM is given. This explains the key idea of how spontaneous symmetry breaking can generate particle masses without violating the underlying gauge symmetry. A key feature of this book is that it gives an accessible explanation of the discovery of the Higgs boson, including the advanced statistical techniques required. The final chapter gives an introduction to LHC physics beyond the standard model and the techniques used in searches for new physics. There is an outline of the shortcomings of the SM and a discussion of possible solutions and future experiments to resolve these outstanding questions. For updates, new results, useful links as well as corrections to errata in this book, please see the book website maintained by the authors: https://pplhcera.physics.ox.ac.uk/

Europe’s boundaries have mainly been shaped by cultural, religious, and political conceptions rather than by geography. This volume of bilingual essays from renowned European scholars outlines the transformation of Europe’s boundaries from the fall of the ancient world to the age of decolonization, or the end of the explicit endeavor to “Europeanize” the world.From the decline of the Roman Empire to the polycentrism of today’s world, the essays span such aspects as the confrontation of Christian Europe with Islam and the changing role of the Mediterranean from “mare nostrum” to a frontier between nations. Scandinavia, eastern Europe and the Atlantic are also analyzed as boundaries in the context of exploration, migratory movements, cultural exchanges, and war. The Boundaries of Europe, edited by Pietro Rossi, is the first installment in the ALLEA book series Discourses on Intellectual Europe, which seeks to explore the question of an intrinsic or quintessential European identity in light of the rising skepticism towards Europe as an integrated cultural and intellectual region.