Quarks, Symmetries and Strings is a book that reflects the rich diversity of current research in physics: it describes quantum chromodynamics, quark phenomenology, superstring theory, supersymmetry, matrix models, statistical methods, superconductivity and neural networks. The book also reflects the diversity of Dr Bunji Sakita's scientific work. Dr Sakita has made seminal contributions in many of these areas. The book celebrates the many path-breaking ideas he pioneered which still cross-fertilize many of the most active areas of current research.

Is there a vector space whose dimension is the golden ratio? Of course not—the golden ratio is not an integer! But this can happen for generalizations of vector spaces—objects of a tensor category. The theory of tensor categories is a relatively new field of mathematics that generalizes the theory of group representations. It has deep connections with many other fields, including representation theory, Hopf algebras, operator algebras, low-dimensional topology (in particular, knot theory), homotopy theory, quantum mechanics and field theory, quantum computation, theory of motives, etc. This book gives a systematic introduction to this theory and a review of its applications. While giving a detailed overview of general tensor categories, it focuses especially on the theory of finite tensor categories and fusion categories (in particular, braided and modular ones), and discusses the main results about them with proofs. In particular, it shows how the main properties of finite-dimensional Hopf algebras may be derived from the theory of tensor categories. Many important results are presented as a sequence of exercises, which makes the book valuable for students and suitable for graduate courses. Many applications, connections to other areas, additional results, and references are discussed at the end of each chapter.

This is a collection of important papers presented by an international group of outstanding scientists at a seminar on strings and symmetries held in Stony Brook. This volume contains reviews on modern string theory and particle physics, including supersymmetric quantization, supergravity, conformal field theory, topological field theory, string phenomenology, matrix models, and W gravity. This proceedings is both an excellent introduction as well as reference source for researchers.

The topics in this volume constitute a fitting tribute by distinguished physicists and mathematicians. They cover strings, conformal field theories, W and Virasoro algebras, topological field theory, quantum groups, vertex and Hopf algebras, and non-commutative geometry. The relatively long contributions are pedagogical in style and address students as well as scientists.

The past decade has witnessed dramatic developments in the field of theoretical physics. This book is a comprehensive introduction to these recent developments. It contains a review of the Standard Model, covering non-perturbative topics, and a discussion of grand unified theories and magnetic monopoles. It introduces the basics of supersymmetry and its phenomenology, and includes dynamics, dynamical supersymmetry breaking, and electric-magnetic duality. The book then covers general relativity and the big bang theory, and the basic issues in inflationary cosmologies before discussing the spectra of known string theories and the features of their interactions. The book also includes brief introductions to technicolor, large extra dimensions, and the Randall-Sundrum theory of warped spaces. This will be of great interest to graduates and researchers in the fields of particle theory, string theory, astrophysics and cosmology. The book contains several problems, and password protected solutions will be available to lecturers at www.cambridge.org/9780521858410.

No one is more successful than this author when it comes to making the cutting edge of physics more accessible to a broad lay audience. In Schrodinger's Kittens, he took readers to the eerie world of subatomic particles & waves. Now, he explores the most exciting area of research in physics today: string theory. Following a series of major breakthroughs in the 1990s, physicists are putting together a clearer picture of how subatomic particles work. By hypothesizing particles as a single loop of vibrating "string," they are on the brink of discovering a way to explain all of nature's forces in a single theory. Grandly named "superstrings," & incorporating the ideas of "supersymmetry," these models are the prime candidate for the long sought-for "Theory of Everything." Written in clear & accessible language. The Search for Superstrings, Symmetry, & the Theory of Everything brings to life the remarkable scientific research that is on the cusp of radically altering our conception of the universe.

Explains why string theorists develop a strong belief in their theory despite the lack of empirical confirmation.

This collection of papers by the renowned physicist, T.D. Lee, covers the four main areas of his work since 1985: soliton stars and black holes; discrete physics; condensed matter and many-body systems; and relativistic heavy ion collisions, particle physics and field theory. In addition, the book contains several of Professor Lee's lectures on such topics as the evolution of physics in this century and the strong link between the sciences and the arts.

This book offers a detailed guide on the journey towards the minimal supersymmetric standard model down the orbifold road. It takes the viewpoint that the chirality of matter fermions is an essential aspect that orbifold compactification allows to derive from higher-dimensional string theories in a straightforward manner. Halfway between textbook and tutorial review, the book is intended for the graduate student and particle phenomenologist wishing to get acquainted with this field.

These course-tested lectures provide a technical introduction to Supersymmetric Grand Unified Theories (SUSY GUTs), as well as a personal view on the topic by one of the pioneers in the field. While the Standard Model of Particle Physics is incredibly successful in describing the known universe it is, nevertheless, an incomplete theory with many free parameters and open issues. An elegant solution to all of these quandaries is the proposed theory of SUSY GUTs. In a GUT, quarks and leptons are related in a simple way by the unifying symmetry and their electric charges are quantized, further the relative strength of the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces are predicted. SUSY GUTs additionally provide a framework for understanding particle masses and offer candidates for dark matter. Finally, with the extension of SUSY GUTs to string theory, a quantum-mechanically consistent unification of the four known forces (including gravity) is obtained. The book is organized in three sections: the first section contains a brief introduction to the Standard Model, supersymmetry and the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. Then SUSY GUTs in four space-time dimensions are introduced and reviewed. In addition, the cosmological issues concerning SUSY GUTs are discussed. Then the requirements for embedding a 4D SUSY GUT into higher-dimensional theories including gravity (i.e. String Theory) are investigated. Accordingly, section two of the course is devoted to discussing the so-called Orbifold GUTs and how in turn they solve some of the technical problems of 4D SUSY GUTs. Orbifold GUTs introduce a new set of open issues, which are then resolved in the third section in which it is shown how to embed Orbifold GUTs into the E(8) x E(8) Heterotic String in 10 space-time dimensions.