For the last few years astrophysicists and elementary particle physicists have been working jointly on the following fascinating phenomena: 1. The solar neutrino puzzle and the question: What happens to the neutrinos on their way from the sun to the earth? 2. The growing evidence that our universe is filled with about 10 times more matter than is visible and the question: What is dark matter made of? 3. The supernovae explosions and the question: What do neutrinos tell us about such explosions and vice versa? The experimental investigation of these phenomena is difficult and involves unconventional techniques. These are presently under development, and bring together such seemingly disparate disciplines as astrophysics and elementary particle physics on the one hand and superconductivity and solid-state physics on the other. This book contains the proceedings of a workshop held in March 1987 at which the above subjects and their experimental investigation were discussed. The proposed experimental methods are very new. They involve frontier developments in low temperature and solid-state physics. The book should be useful to researchers and students who actively work on these subjects or plan to enter the field. It also offers the non-expert reader with some physics background a good survey of the activities in this field.

Most of the relevant topics on the dark matter in the universe are discussed. The present knowledge of the problem is presented and possible solutions are discussed. The actual experimental efforts devoted to determining the nature of the dark matter — baryonic (for instance, brown dwarfs) or non-baryonic (such as supersymmetric particles) — and to detecting it are illustrated, paying particular attention to necessary technological developments.

The International Conference on Calorimetry in High Energy Physics has become the major forum for presenting the latest developments of calorimetry techniques. The eighth conference was attended by about 130 physicists from 20 countries and covered all aspects of calorimetric particle detection and measurements, with emphasis on high energy physics experiments.

Superconductors today constitute a major focus of activity in the development of high resolution detectors for many applications. This volume collects the papers of an international workshop on the basic theoretical and experimental issues involved in the interaction between particles and superconductors. It emphasizes the involved condensed matter aspects of non-equilibrium time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equations, metastable superconductivity, quasiparticle and phonon lifetimes, and quasiparticle trapping, as well as low-noise pulse electronics, detector fabrication and low background cryogenics.

The Proceedings discusses the present state of the art in detector development and design for high energy particle physics and astrophysics, both for the next generation experiments and for apparatus upgrade.