Modern Cosmology by Scott Dodelson, Academic Press. ISBN 0122191412, £39.95 ($70).
Particle Astrophysics by Donald Perkins, Oxford University Press. Hardback ISBN 0198509510, £44.95 ($74.50). Paperback ISBN 0198509529, £22.95 ($39.50).
It is widely and justifiably stated that we are in a golden age for cosmology. Certainly, in just the past five years our knowledge of the universe has increased in leaps and bounds by virtue of new data concerning the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the study of very distant Type-1a supernovae (SNe1a), and surveys of large-scale structure (LSS). Cosmic parameters that five years ago were uncertain by a factor of two, are now known to a few per cent. The cosmic concordance of the three data sets for CMB, SNe1a and LSS leads us to our present understanding of the universe as flat with a total energy very close to the critical density, and containing (with quite small errors) 4% baryonic material, 23% nonbaryonic dark matter and 73% dark energy.
Other areas of fundamental theoretical physics have also made progress. In particular, again in the past five years, the Standard Model of particle phenomenology has been shown to be inadequate by the experimental demonstration of neutrino masses. Particle phenomenology and theoretical cosmology have become even more closely intertwined. String theory, though not yet supported by any experimental test, is a constant source of ideas concerning both particle phenomenology and the principal issues of theoretical cosmology. It is an interesting question whether the first support for string theory will come from the very small or the very large.
If we go back further, say 20 years, cosmological data were so inaccurate that the field was treated with some condescension by particle theorists who were accustomed to reproducible precision data from the large accelerators. This situation gradually changed due to the heroic efforts of people like the late Dave Schramm. Now, with the release by NASA of the WMAP data on CMB in February 2003, we have entered what can be called, without hesitation, the era of precision cosmology. In a book on precision cosmology, after the necessary introduction to the mathematics of an expanding space-time, the topics that could very reasonably be included are: 1. cosmic microwave background, 2. nucleosynthesis, 3. inflation, 4. dark matter, 5. dark energy, 6. structure formation, and 7. black holes and other extreme events such as supernovae and, what may be a subset, gamma-ray bursters. It is with this preconceived menu in mind that I review these two books.
Modern Cosmology by Scott Dodelson is intended for beginning graduate students. This book is very up to date and gives excellent treatments of structure formation, and especially of the CMB, including its polarization and details of its statistical analysis. This provides what is the most complete such description in any textbook. The topic of weak gravitational lensing is also handled well. The young author is an active researcher in theoretical cosmology whose enthusiasm for the subject is evident throughout, and whose selection of topics reflects his areas of greatest expertise. The inclusion of many worked examples will make this book a very good choice for a graduate course.
For researchers, the treatment of data analysis will be particularly valuable. For both CMB, from WMAP and the future more data intensive Planck mission, and for LSS from the Sloan Digital Sky and 2dF surveys, as well as even larger galaxy surveys in the future, the quality and quantity of the raw data set are such that straightforward algorithms are too slow even with the fastest available computers. Thus considerable creativity and intelligence are needed to optimize such an analysis. It is interesting that a similar situation must exist for raw data from high-energy particle colliders such as from the Tevatron at Fermilab and the future LHC collider at CERN. It is therefore very welcome that, for both CMB and galaxy surveys, Dodelson leads us masterfully through the likelihood function and sophisticated mathematical techniques for its evaluation.
A comparison of Dodelson's book according to my menu of topics, reveals that topics 1 and 6 are thoroughly treated, while items 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 are only relatively briefly described. Thus the treatment is very strong in only some of the areas. To be fair, the author is well aware of this and provides copious and generous references to other books, which should fill in the gaps.
One minor complaint is that the typesetting is not adequately checked, for example the headings of subsections 7.2.2 and 7.3.2 are at the foot of the previous page. But this is nitpicking and I liked this book and believe that it, together with the other referenced publications, could form the basis for a very interesting postgraduate course in cosmology, as well as being useful for active researchers to have in their personal library.
Donald Perkins' Particle Astrophysics is intended for the different audience of advanced undergraduates. The author is a senior high-energy experimentalist, and two of the seven chapters are on topics in particle theory. This book contains elementary discussions of expanding space-time, dark matter, dark energy and structure formation. There is also a chapter each on cosmic rays, the author's forte, and stellar evolution. One attractive feature of Perkins' book is that each chapter ends with a concise summary of its most important items. Perkins writes exceptionally clearly and includes a significant number of worked examples, making this an ideal textbook for use in a junior or senior course that introduces particle theory and cosmology and their strong interrelationship.
Paul H Frampton, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics by Martinus Veltman, World Scientific. Hardback ISBN 9812381481, £33 ($48). Paperback ISBN 981238149X, £13 ($19).
I greatly enjoyed finally reading a book that goes into the details I always wanted. Not being a physicist myself, I have often attempted, in vain, to find a reasonably deep explanation of the current state of physics. Most books simply re-hash what the curious layperson already knows: relativity and quantum mechanics are weird, there are quarks in everything. They stop short of telling you how and why nature is strange. Veltman, however, has the courage to try a deeper level about what we understand and what is simply fact. He stubbornly and rightfully sticks to what has been experimentally verified. In his words: "space-time and the laws of quantum mechanics are like the decor, the setting of a play. The elementary particles are the actors, and physics is what they do. A door we see on stage is not a door until we see an actor go through it. Else it might be fake, just painted on." For that reason, you should not expect anything on string theory or supersymmetry. Veltman ends his book with the remark "they are [so far] figments of the theoretical mind." They are doors we have not seen used.
The narrative of the book suffers from bad English in many places, with irritating errors like "than" instead of "then" and awkward phrasing. There are some paragraph breaks missing and other indications of the impatience of the author. An attempt at explaining how "quadratic implies approximately doubling for percentage increases" completely fails, even though I do understand it.
More worrying are places where Veltman may confuse the reader by omitting forward references. On page 69 we are told that there are three quark colours and three anti-colours. That should make for nine corresponding gluons, which I immediately pictured in a square matrix of nine cells, but then he puzzles me by stating that "the white one" does not exist. On page 77 I find a reference to "diagonal gluons" (ah, my mental picture of the gluon matrix was perhaps not entirely wrong!), but it is only on page 114 that the white gluons are explained through mixing. My copy is now full of notes such as "see also page n".
However, the amount explained in this book is truly impressive. To show how much effort went into discovering how nature works at the fundamental level, Veltman gives short biographical notes from a number of scientists. They appear in interesting vignettes, printed in a different colour, each on a full page. There are no fewer than 86 names. Veltman has a nice way of setting the historical record straight, tells amusing stories of his encounters with the personalities involved, and makes you smile at the vignette about Ernest Stückelberg.
Even if you have read books popularizing physics before, you have to read this one slowly. There is some maths (fortunately!), but nothing beyond high-school level, and there are many precise colour diagrams. Veltman often repeats what he explained before, and actually dares to say "forget about it" or "that's the way it is". This is refreshing as other accounts of physics are always vague about what can be explained in terms of more detailed theory and what we should accept as fact.
I have still not understood spin and attractive forces, but one should leave room for the second edition.
Robert Cailliau, CERN.
An Introduction to a Realistic Quantum Mechanics by Giuliano Preparata, World Scientific. IBSN 9812381767 £16 ($24).
In this small book, Giuliano Preparata claims that all the conceptual difficulties of quantum mechanics are eliminated if one takes the broader framework of quantum field theory. I am not sure I agree with him completely. I belong to those who, following John Bell, sometimes feel uneasy about quantum mechanics but realize that absolutely no substitute works, in spite of the courageous efforts of people like S M Roy and others. I am not like Roland Omnès, who thinks that if one asks the right kind of question there is no problem. However, I agree completely with Preparata when he says that going to field theory eliminates a lot of problems and constitutes a considerable improvement. For instance, the transition between states with a fixed number of particles and coherent states is much clearer, and the structure of the vacuum easier to elucidate.
I find this book, published two years after Preparata's death, constitutes a beautiful demonstration of the deep knowledge of quantum physics that Giuliano had. Sometimes during his life he took rather extreme positions against the main stream of particle theorists. There is hardly any trace of that in this book, just a demonstration of his immense culture and broadness of view. I am grateful to him for leaving us this document and can only recommend reading it.
André Martin, CERN.
Books received
Transverse Spin Physics by Vincenzo Barone and Philip G Ratcliffe, World Scientific. Hardback ISBN 9812381015, £39 ($58).
Devoted to the theory and phenomenology of transverse-spin effects in high-energy hadronic physics, this book aims to assess the state of the art in this field, in which there has been much theoretical work over the past decade. Beginning with polarized deep-inelastic scattering, it covers the transverse spin structure of the proton, QCD and the structure function g2, Drell-Yan production, and inclusive leptoproduction and hadroproduction.
Applied Partial Differential Equations by John Ockendon et al., Oxford University Press. Hardback ISBN 198527705, £62.50 ($99.50). Paperback ISBN 198527713 £27.50 ($47.50).
This is a revised edition of a book first published in 1999, which sought to present at a first-year graduate level the theory of partial differential equations from an applied perspective. The new edition contains many new sections and exercises on recent applications.
Ontological Aspects of Quantum Field Theory edited by Meinard Kuhlmannm, Holger Lyre and Andrew Wayne, World Scientific. Hardback ISBN 9812381821, £56 ($82).
This anthology on the foundations of quantum field theory (QFT) brings together 15 essays by researchers in physics, the philosophy of physics and analytic philosophy. It includes work on the role of measurement and experimental evidence, corpuscular versus field-theoretic interpretations of QFT, the interpretation of gauge symmetry and localization.