This book introduces the reader to how fundamental topics in particle physics can be studied with the largest neutrino telescopes currently in operation. Due to their large size, reaching cubic-kilometer volumes, and their wide energy response, these unusual detectors can provide insight on neutrino oscillations, dark matter searches or searches for exotic particles, new neutrino interactions or extra dimensions, among many other topics.Lacking a man-made neutrino 'beam', neutrino telescopes use the copious flux of neutrinos continuously produced by cosmic rays interacting in the Earth's atmosphere, as well as neutrinos from astrophysical origin. They have therefore access to neutrinos of higher energies and much longer baselines than those produced in present accelerators, being able to search for new physics at complementary scales than currently available in particle physics laboratories around the world.Written by carefully chosen experts in the field, the book introduces each topic in a pedagogical way apt not only to professionals, but also to students or the interested reader with a background in physics.

Driven by discoveries, and enabled by leaps in technology and imagination, our understanding of the universe has changed dramatically during the course of the last few decades. The fields of astronomy and astrophysics are making new connections to physics, chemistry, biology, and computer science. Based on a broad and comprehensive survey of scientific opportunities, infrastructure, and organization in a national and international context, New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics outlines a plan for ground- and space- based astronomy and astrophysics for the decade of the 2010's. Realizing these scientific opportunities is contingent upon maintaining and strengthening the foundations of the research enterprise including technological development, theory, computation and data handling, laboratory experiments, and human resources. New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics proposes enhancing innovative but moderate-cost programs in space and on the ground that will enable the community to respond rapidly and flexibly to new scientific discoveries. The book recommends beginning construction on survey telescopes in space and on the ground to investigate the nature of dark energy, as well as the next generation of large ground-based giant optical telescopes and a new class of space-based gravitational observatory to observe the merging of distant black holes and precisely test theories of gravity. New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics recommends a balanced and executable program that will support research surrounding the most profound questions about the cosmos. The discoveries ahead will facilitate the search for habitable planets, shed light on dark energy and dark matter, and aid our understanding of the history of the universe and how the earliest stars and galaxies formed. The book is a useful resource for agencies supporting the field of astronomy and astrophysics, the Congressional committees with jurisdiction over those agencies, the scientific community, and the public.

"Neutrinos in Particle Physics, Astronomy and Cosmology" provides a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to neutrino physics, neutrino astronomy and neutrino cosmology. The intrinsic properties and fundamental interactions of neutrinos are described, as is the phenomenology of lepton flavor mixing, seesaw mechanisms and neutrino oscillations. The cosmic neutrino background, stellar neutrinos, supernova neutrinos and ultrahigh-energy cosmic neutrinos, together with the cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry and other roles of massive neutrinos in cosmology, are discussed in detail. This book is intended for researchers and graduate students in the fields of particle physics, particle astrophysics and cosmology. Dr. Zhizhong Xing is a professor at the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Dr. Shun Zhou is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Physics, Germany.

Reviews the current state of knowledge of neutrino masses and the related question of neutrino oscillations. After an overview of the theory of neutrino masses and mixings, detailed accounts are given of the laboratory limits on neutrino masses, astrophysical and cosmological constraints on those masses, experimental results on neutrino oscillations, the theoretical interpretation of those results, and theoretical models of neutrino masses and mixings. The book concludes with an examination of the potential of long-baseline experiments. This is an essential reference text for workers in elementary-particle physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics.

The wealth of recent cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure data has transformed the field of cosmology. These observations have not only become precise enough to answer questions about the universe on the largest scales, but also to address puzzles in the microscopic description of Nature. This thesis investigates new ways of probing the early universe, the properties of neutrinos and the possible existence of other light particles. In particular, based on detailed theoretical insights and novel analyses, new evidence for the cosmic neutrino background is found in the distribution of galaxies and in cosmic microwave background data. This tests the Standard Model of particle physics and the universe back to a time when it was about one second old. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that future observations will be capable of probing physics beyond the Standard Model since they can achieve a particular target which would either allow the detection of any light particles that have ever been in thermal equilibrium or imply strong bounds on their properties.

Written by foremost experts, this short book gives a clear description of the physics of quantum black holes. The reader will learn about quantum black holes in four and higher dimensions, primordial black holes, the production of black holes in high energy particle collisions, Hawking radiation, black holes in models of low scale quantum gravity and quantum gravitational aspects of black holes.

Describes the branch of astronomy in which processes in the universe are investigated with experimental methods employed in particle-physics experiments. After a historical introduction the basics of elementary particles, Explains particle interactions and the relevant detection techniques, while modern aspects of astroparticle physics are described in a chapter on cosmology. Provides an orientation in the field of astroparticle physics that many beginners might seek and appreciate because the underlying physics fundamentals are presented with little mathematics, and the results are illustrated by many diagrams. Readers have a chance to enter this field of astronomy with a book that closes the gap between expert and popular level.

The physics of neutrinos--uncharged elementary particles that are key to helping us better understand the nature of our universe--is one of the most exciting frontiers of modern science. This book provides a comprehensive overview of neutrino physics today and explores promising new avenues of inquiry that could lead to future breakthroughs. The Physics of Neutrinos begins with a concise history of the field and a tutorial on the fundamental properties of neutrinos, and goes on to discuss how the three neutrino types interchange identities as they propagate from their sources to detectors. The book shows how studies of neutrinos produced by such phenomena as cosmic rays in the atmosphere and nuclear reactions in the solar interior provide striking evidence that neutrinos have mass, and it traces our astounding progress in deciphering the baffling experimental findings involving neutrinos. The discovery of neutrino mass offers the first indication of a new kind of physics that goes beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles, and this book considers the unanticipated patterns in the masses and mixings of neutrinos in the framework of proposed new theoretical models. The Physics of Neutrinos maps out the ambitious future facilities and experiments that will advance our knowledge of neutrinos, and explains why the way forward in solving the outstanding questions in neutrino science will require the collective efforts of particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, and cosmology.

In 1912 Victor Franz Hess made the revolutionary discovery that ionizing radiation is incident upon the Earth from outer space. He showed with ground-based and balloon-borne detectors that the intensity of the radiation did not change significantly between day and night. Consequently, the sun could not be regarded as the sources of this radiation and the question of its origin remained unanswered. Today, almost one hundred years later the question of the origin of the cosmic radiation still remains a mystery.Hess' discovery has given an enormous impetus to large areas of science, in particular to physics, and has played a major role in the formation of our current understanding of universal evolution. For example, the development of new fields of research such as elementary particle physics, modern astrophysics and cosmology are direct consequences of this discovery. Over the years the field of cosmic ray research has evolved in various directions: Firstly, the field of particle physics that was initiated by the discovery of many so-called elementary particles in the cosmic radiation. There is a strong trend from the accelerator physics community to reenter the field of cosmic ray physics, now under the name of astroparticle physics. Secondly, an important branch of cosmic ray physics that has rapidly evolved in conjunction with space exploration concerns the low energy portion of the cosmic ray spectrum. Thirdly, the branch of research that is concerned with the origin, acceleration and propagation of the cosmic radiation represents a great challenge for astrophysics, astronomy and cosmology. Presently very popular fields of research have rapidly evolved, such as high-energy gamma ray and neutrino astronomy. In addition, high-energy neutrino astronomy may soon initiate as a likely spin-off neutrino tomography of the Earth and thus open a unique new branch of geophysical research of the interior of the Earth. Finally, of considerable interest are the biological and medical aspects of the cosmic radiation because of it ionizing character and the inevitable irradiation to which we are exposed. This book is a reference manual for researchers and students of cosmic ray physics and associated fields and phenomena. It is not intended to be a tutorial. However, the book contains an adequate amount of background materials that its content should be useful to a broad community of scientists and professionals. The present book contains chiefly a data collection in compact form that covers the cosmic radiation in the vicinity of the Earth, in the Earth's atmosphere, at sea level and underground. Included are predominantly experimental but also theoretical data. In addition the book contains related data, definitions and important relations. The aim of this book is to offer the reader in a single volume a readily available comprehensive set of data that will save him the need of frequent time consuming literature searches.

This review volume is motivated by the recent discovery of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos by IceCube. The aim of the book is to bring together chapters on the status of current and future neutrino observatories with chapters on the implications and possible interpretations of the present observations and their upper limits. Each chapter is a mini-review of one aspect of the subject by leading experts. Taken together, the chapters constitute an up-to-date review of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos and their potential sources.