News 99, Proceedings Of The International Symposium On Nuclear Electro-weak Spectroscopy For Symmetries In Electro-weak Nuclear-processes

Book excerpt: The NEWS 99 international symposium discusses symmetries in electroweak processes in nuclei. Many phenomena in nuclear and particle physics are related to symmetry. It is known that we are living in a left-handed world as far as the Weak interaction is concerned, but neutrino physics suggests that a right-handed world may also be relevant. Chiral symmetry and its breaking plays an essential role in generating hadron masses. Symmetries related to flavor in the strong interaction like isospin, SU(3) and so on are known to be violated although they play a crucial role for the understanding of phenomena in nuclear and particle physics. The treatment of tiny breaking is of particular importance. Weak and electromagnetic interactions are well established at the fundamental level and can be used to probe the structure of nuclei and hadrons.A wide variety of phenomena in nuclear and particle physics were discussed in NEWS 99 with an emphasis on symmetry. Topics ranged from nuclear structure to neutrino properties, covering highly phenomenological to fundamental fields.