# Bookshelf

28 March 2013

• Reviews of Accelerator Science and Technology: Volume 4 – Accelerator Applications in Industry and the Environment • Group Theory for High-Energy Physicists • A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics, Third Edition • Strings, Gauge Fields, and the Geometry Behind the Legacy of Maximilian Kreuzer • Introduction to Mathematical Physics: Methods and Concepts, Second Edition • Gauge Theories of Gravitation: A Reader with Commentaries

Reviews of Accelerator Science and Technology: Volume 4 – Accelerator Applications in Industry and the Environment
By Alexander W Chao and Weiren Chou (ed.)
World Scientific
Hardback: £111
E-book: £144

Of about 30,000 accelerators at work in the world today, a majority of these are for applications in industry. This volume of Reviews of Accelerator Science and Technology contains 14 articles on such applications, all by experts in their respective fields. The first eight articles review various applications, from ion-beam analysis to neutron generation, while the next three discuss accelerator technology that has been developed specifically for industry. The twelfth article tackles the challenging subject of future prospects in this rapidly evolving branch of technology. Last, the volume features an article on the success story of CERN by former director-general, Herwig Schopper, as well as a tribute to Simon van der Meer, “A modest genius of accelerator science”.

Group Theory for High-Energy Physicists
CRC Press/Taylor and Francis
Hardback: £44.99

Although group theory has played a significant role in the development of various disciplines of physics, there are few recent books that start from the beginning and then go on to consider applications from the point of view of high-energy physicists. Group Theory for High-Energy Physicists aims to fill that role. The book first introduces the concept of a group and the characteristics that are imperative for developing group theory as applied to high-energy physics. It then describes group representations and, with a focus on continuous groups, analyses the root structure of important groups and obtains the weights of various representations of these groups. It also explains how symmetry principles associated with group theoretical techniques can be used to interpret experimental results and make predictions. This concise introduction should be accessible to undergraduate and graduate students in physics and mathematics, as well as to researchers in high-energy physics.

A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics, Third Edition
By Ian D Lawrie
CRC Press/Taylor and Francis
Paperback: £44.99

A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics invites readers on a guided exploration of the theoretical ideas that shape contemporary understanding of the physical world at the fundamental level. Its central themes – which include space–time geometry and the general relativistic account of gravity, quantum field theory and the gauge theories of fundamental forces – are developed in explicit mathematical detail, with an emphasis on conceptual understanding. Straightforward treatments of the Standard Model of particle physics and that of cosmology are supplemented with introductory accounts of more speculative theories, including supersymmetry and string theory. This third edition includes a new chapter on quantum gravity and new sections with extended discussions of topics such as the Higgs boson, massive neutrinos, cosmological perturbations, dark energy and dark matter.

Strings, Gauge Fields, and the Geometry Behind the Legacy of Maximilian Kreuzer
By Anton Rebhan, Ludmil Katzarkov, Johanna Knapp, Radoslav Rashkov and Emanuel Scheidegger (eds.)
World Scientific
Hardback: £104
E-book: £135

This book contains invited contributions from collaborators of Maximilian Kreuzer, a well known string theorist who built a sizeable group at Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) but sadly died in November 2010 aged just 50 (CERN Courier June 2011 p38). Victor Batyrev, Philip Candelas, Michael Douglas, Alexei Morozov, Joseph Polchinski, Peter van Nieuwenhuizen and Peter Wes are among others giving accounts of Kreuzer’s scientific legacy and original articles. Besides reviews of recent progress in the exploration of string-theory vacua and corresponding mathematical developments, Part I reviews in detail Kreuzer’s important work with Friedemann Brandt and Norbert Dragon on the classification of anomalies in gauge theories. Similarly, Part III contains a user manual for a new thoroughly revised version of PALP (Package for Analysing Lattice Polytopes with applications to toric geometry), the software developed by Kreuzer and Harald Skarke at TU Vienna.

Introduction to Mathematical Physics: Methods and Concepts, Second Edition
By Chun Wa Wong
Oxford University Press
Hardback: £45 $84.95 Introduction to Mathematical Physics explains how and why mathematics is needed in the description of physical events in space. Aimed at physics undergraduates, it is a classroom-tested textbook on vector analysis, linear operators, Fourier series and integrals, differential equations, special functions and functions of a complex variable. Strongly correlated with core undergraduate courses on classical and quantum mechanics and electromagnetism, it helps students master these necessary mathematical skills but also contains advanced topics of interest to graduate students. It includes many tables of mathematical formulae and references to useful materials on the internet, as well as short tutorials on basic mathematical topics to help readers refresh their knowledge. An appendix on Mathematica encourages the reader to use computer-aided algebra to solve problems in mathematical physics. A free Instructor’s Solutions Manual is available to instructors who order the book. Gauge Theories of Gravitation: A Reader with Commentaries By Milutin Blagojevićand Friedrich W Hehl (eds.) World Scientific Hardback: £111$168 S\$222

With a foreword by Tom Kibble and commentaries by Milutin Blagojević and Friedrich W Hehl, the aim of this volume is to introduce graduate and advanced undergraduate students of theoretical or mathematical physics – and other interested researchers – to the field of classical gauge theories of gravity. Intended as a guide to the literature in this field, it encourages readers to study the introductory commentaries and become familiar with the basic content of the reprints and the related ideas, before choosing specific reprints and then returning to the text to focus on further topics.