The ICTP has been holding a Summer Workshop in High Energy Physics and Cosmology since 1981. The primary goal of these workshops is to bring together active physicists from around the world, and to provide a platform where the frontier developments in the field are presented by leading workers. The atmosphere for the workshop was active and stimulating and each area was represented by leading physicists in the field.

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.

Superstring theory is one of the most exciting and actively pursued branches of physics today. The far-reaching claims made for this theory would, if correct, provide the much sought-after Theory of Everything, the unification of physics. It would enable the fundamental building blocks of matter to be identified and amalgamated in a common description, with a unified theory of all the forces of nature. This book explains the theory for laymen, in an introduction to the subject which originated in the BBC Radio programme, Desperately Seeking Superstrings. A clear, concise, non-mathematical explanation of the theory and its profound implications is followed by transcripts of interviews with all the most important physicists involved in its development. Superstrings makes a fascinating topic at the forefront of modern scientific research accessible to physicists, philosophers and general readers alike.

A systematic introduction to string phenomenology, outlining how string theory is connected to the real world of particle physics.

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.

Superstring theory is a promising theory which can potentially unify all the forces and the matters in particle physics. A new multi-dimensional object which is called "D-brane" was found. It drastically changed our perspective of a unified world. We may live on membrane-like hypersurfaces in higher dimensions ("braneworld scenario"), or we can create blackholes at particle accelarators, or the dynamics of quarks is shown to be equivalent to the higher dimensional gravity theory. All these scenarios are explained in this book with plain words but with little use of equations and with many figures. The book starts with a summary of long-standing problems in elementary particle physics and explains the D-branes and many applications of them. It ends with future roads for a unified ultimate theory of our world.

Introduces the superstring theory that attempts to unite general relativity and quantum mechanics.