Short description:

This book in honor of Antonio Aurilia provides an overview of one of the most mysterious research fields in theoretical physics, namely the fundamental interactions at energies between the electroweak scale and the Planck scale. The latter includes the physics beyond the Standard Model, strings and p-branes, quantum gravity, quantum black holes and early Universe cosmology. A related goal of the work is to present the physical conditions upon which some piece of evidence of new physics at extreme energies can be exposed at current (or near future) experimental facilities.

The work is organized in three parts. The first part schematically introduces the problem of fundamental interactions and summarizes the life and work of Prof. Aurilia. It contains some unpublished material by Prof. Aurilia. The second part forms the body of the book and contains contributions from internationally recognized specialists that collaborated with Prof. Aurilia. The third part summarizes the work and draws the conclusions with particular attention to future developments.

Long description:

This book, dedicated to Antonio Aurilia, provides an overview of one of the most enigmatic fields in theoretical physics: the fundamental interactions at energies ranging from the electroweak scale to the Planck scale. This includes physics beyond the standard model, string theory, p-branes, quantum gravity, quantum black holes, and early universe cosmology. Another goal of this work is to present the physical conditions under which evidence of new physics at extreme energies might be uncovered at current (or near-future) experimental facilities.

The book is organized into three parts. The first part introduces fundamental interaction problems and summarizes Prof. Aurilia's life and work, including some unpublished material. The second part forms the book's core, featuring contributions from internationally recognized specialists who collaborated with Prof. Aurilia. The third part summarizes the findings and concludes, with a particular focus on future developments.

Table of Contents:

Introduction.- The issue of fundamental interactions.- Life and work of Antonio Aurilia.- The Physics from the electroweak to the Planck scale.- Particle sectors beyond the Standard Model.- Noncommutative and nonlocal quantum field theory.- Supergravity, superstrings and quantum gravity.- Evaporating black holes and black hole thermodynamics.- Quantum pregeometry and Planckian black holes.- Analogue gravity systems.- Higher dimensional spacetimes and terascale quantum gravity.- Dimensionally reduced Universe and Planck time cosmology.- Future perspectives.- Summary of the proposed results and potential developments.- Experimental observations in the near future.- Final remarks and conclusions.