CERN Courier September 2016 CERN Courier September 2016 Bookshelf Bookshelf PWA90: A Lifetime Of Emergence experimental physicist Lord C OMPILED BY V IRGINIA G RECO, CERN By P Chandra, P Coleman, G Kotliar, P Ong, D L Stein Patrick M S Blackett, written and C Yu (eds) by one of his pupils at the Experimental Studies of Neutrino World Scientifi c Sphynx Observatory, Antonio Oscillations In December 2013, a community of physicists Zichichi. Blackett is well By Takaaki Kajita gathered in Princeton on the occasion of known for his work on cloud World Scientifi c Philip Warren Anderson’s 90th birthday to chambers and cosmic rays, which earned This book on neutrino oscillations is celebrate the achievements of his remarkable him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1948. mainly of historic interest. It consists career. This book is the result of the event, The author offers his personal testimony, of seven chapters that reproduce review and collects a number of intriguing and lively from the fi rst time he heard Blackett’s name articles written by the 2015 Nobel contributions from Anderson’s students, to when he went to work with him, and then laureate in physics, Takaaki Kajita, which collaborators and distinguished colleagues, about the research he could be involved in. were previously published between which will appeal to both high-energy and He provides a profi le of his subject while 2000 and 2009, either in journals or in condensed-matter physicists. giving an overview of Blackett’s work international conference proceedings The description of a single helium atom and, in particular, of his most signifi cant (all World Scientifi c publications). The is familiar to any undergraduate student, discoveries, including the so-called articles describe experiments on solar but a collection of many helium atoms vacuum-polarisation effect, the fi rst example and atmospheric neutrino interactions produces unexpected phenomena ranging of “virtual physics”, and strange particles. performed using the Kamiokande and from superfl uidity to magnetic phases. This The important implications of Blackett’s SuperKamiokande water Cherenkov occurrence could be concisely summarised pioneering contribution to sub-nuclear detectors installed in the Kamioka mine by saying that “more is different”, as physics are also discussed. in Japan. These experiments resulted Anderson (who shared the 1977 Nobel The book also presents a portrait of the in the 1998 discovery of atmospheric Prize in Physics with N Mott and J Van world of physics during those times, and muon-neutrino (νμ) oscillation by observing Vleck for their fundamental theoretical gives insights into life and research at νμ disappearance over a fl ight-path length investigations of the electronic structure CERN, as well as about Blackett’s ideas. He of the order of the Earth’s radius. In of magnetic and disordered systems) was very interested in the role of science in addition, they have provided important wrote in the title of a pedagogical article the culture of the time. He was convinced hints on the oscillation of solar neutrinos, published in 1972. As Anderson would his mechanism as the relativistic analogue that physicists should be directly engaged which was conclusively demonstrated in put it, “the ability to reduce everything to of Anderson’s idea, whose origin is instead with communicating to society, which 2002 by the SNO experiment in Canada Finally, chapter 2, written with four and of the results published prior to simple fundamental laws does not imply conceptually motivated by a series of should be informed about the contribution of (the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics was also co-authors, addresses the physics 2014, including the measurement of θ13. the ability to start from these laws and contributions by J Schwinger, speculating science to the progress of our civilisation. awarded to A B McDonald for his leading capabilities of possible future experiments These results are again summarised in reconstruct the whole universe.” The that gauge fi elds can become massive thanks Rich in personal anecdotes, pictures role in this experiment). using a water Cherenkov detector with a chapter 6, where the current knowledge of so-called “emergentism” appears then as to strong coupling effects in two space– and appendices, the book could appeal Chapter 1 includes a short description of mass of 1 Mton. three-neutrino oscillation parameters is a possible synthesis between the thesis time dimensions. This fi eld theory in two to physicists and students who are also results from experiments using neutrinos ● Luigi Di Lella, University of Pisa & INFN, Italy. described. Future experiments to measure of the reductionism (often attributed to dimensions is often used to introduce the interested in the history of science and in from accelerators. These include the the remaining oscillation parameters (the particle physics) and the antithesis of pure concept of “bosonisation”. the human dimension of great scientists. As K2K experiment in Japan and MINOS Neutrino Oscillations: A Practical Guide to so-called neutrino mass hierarchy and constructivism. This third perspective can The contributions contained in a fi nal point, the layout and editing could be at Fermilab, which confi rmed the Basics and Applications the CP-violation phase) are discussed be appreciated in this book. PWA90 can be considered as an extended improved. atmospheric neutrino oscillation, and the By Fumihiko Suekane in chapter 7, together with oscillation Relatively short, it contains accurate and introduction to a more technical treatise KamLAND experiment (also located in the Springer anomalies observed by a number of stimulating accounts of various hot topics (very popular among practitioners in the Macroscopic Electrodynamics: An Kamioka mine), which has observed the Also available at the CERN bookshop experiments (LSND, MiniBoone, that are popular in condensed-matter theory, late 1980s and early 1990s) entitled Basic Introductory Graduate Treatment disappearance of electron antineutrinos This is a detailed and up-to-date textbook Gallium and recent re-analyses of old starting from the ubiquitous mechanism Notions of Condensed Matter Physics By W Wilcox and Chris Thron – (νe) from nuclear reactors over an average on neutrino oscillations. After a short reactor experiments). These anomalies, if of the localisation of waves in random (Benjamin-Cummings 1984) and edited World Scientifi c baseline of 180 km, therefore verifying historical introduction (chapter 1), confi rmed, would imply the existence of media (often referred to as “Anderson by P W Anderson together with C C Yu. This book provides a solar-neutrino oscillation with “man-made” chapter 2 contains a concise, yet quite at least one additional “sterile” neutrino localisation”). The connections between In that book, Anderson managed to comprehensive treatment of neutrinos. Although not up to date, the complete, presentation of neutrino theory with a mass in the order of 1 eV, requiring superfl uidity, superconductivity and the stress the connection between symmetry classical electrodynamics for 2 values of the oscillation parameters Δm12, in the Standard Model, including neutrino a mixing matrix of larger dimensions and way that massless gauge bosons acquire breaking, emergent phenomena and graduate students of physics 2 Δm23, θ12 and θ23 quoted in this book are interactions and production in pion, muon more oscillation parameters. Chapter 7 a mass are explored in the contribution condensed-matter theory. While more and engineering. The word quite precise and close to the current ones. and nuclear beta decay. The basic ideas of also includes a discussion of the difference of Frank Wilczek (who shared the 2004 than 30 years separate the two books, “macroscopic” in the title refers Future directions and plans in the particle oscillation in quantum mechanics between Dirac and Majorana neutrinos, and Nobel Prize in Physics with David Gross their common goals and inspirations both to the large-scale manifestations of study of neutrino oscillations are also are introduced in chapter 3, and a detailed the implications of direct measurements and David Politzer, for the discovery of remain intact: different areas of physics the theory and to the applications of the described. In particular, methods and theory of neutrino oscillations is presented of the effective νe mass and of searches for asymptotic freedom). can and must be cross-fertilised because, so-called macroscopic Maxwell equations plans to measure the mixing angle θ13 (not in chapter 4 – fi rst in a two-neutrino neutrinoless double beta decay. Finally, The historical origins of Anderson’s ultimately, physics is one. to idealised media, which are discussed in yet measured in 2009) using neutrinos approximation, then generalised to the three chapter 8 contains a useful appendix paper describing the relation between ● Massimo Giovannini, CERN & INFN Milan-Bicocca, the book. from both reactors and accelerators are neutrino fl avours – for oscillations both in summarising all the symbols, abbreviations plasmons, gauge invariance and mass are Italy. The topics are carefully explained, discussed, as well as the impact of the vacuum and matter. In addition to the usual and formulae used in the book. masterly reviewed by Ed Witten (professor using precise but informal language θ 13 value on the possible detection of CP neutrino description in terms of plane waves, The textbook contains all of the of mathematical physics at the Institute for Books