Weak Interation Of Elementary Particles | Okun’

This book is based on lectures delivered by the author in 1960 and 1961 at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and at the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research. The book is meant for experimental physicists working in the field of elementary particles and high energies, and for young theoretical physicists specializing in this field.

The author has set himself two tasks: first, to make the reader familiar with the basic ideas and problems of the theory of the weak interaction of elementary particles; second, to make the reader familiar with the methods of calculation within the theory and to show him how the methods are to be applied.

The overall content of the book is concentrated about two pivotal hypotheses: the universality of the weak interaction, and the composite model of strongly interacting particles. These hypo­ theses allow the contents to be expounded in a more concise way and to retrace the connection between various problems in the theory of weak and strong interactions. Like every extrapolation, the hypotheses of the universality and of the composite model will undoubtedly be improved in the future and in part modified in the light of new experimental facts. In the form in which they are presented in the book, these hypotheses are to be considered as a “ zero approximation”.

Translated from the Russian by S. and M. Nikolic Translation Edited by J. Bernstein