Towards Ultimate Understanding Of The Universe - Proceedings Of The First Lecospa Symposium

The past two decades have observed dramatic advancement in our understanding of the universe. Such progress in turn has triggered further questions yet to be answered. Aspired by such prospects, several institutions dedicated to the research of cosmology have been established in the last decade, which include the Leung Center for Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics (LeCosPA) at the National Taiwan University. To celebrate its 4th anniversary the First LeCosPA Symposium was held in February 2012 at NTU. Internationally renowned physicists and authorities in cosmology, particle astrophysics, gravity and general relativity, and high energy physics convened to survey our present understanding of the universe and to explore the future prospects from both theoretical and experimental perspectives. Topics covered include the detection and the nature of dark matter and dark energy, the fundamental understanding of space, time, mass and gravity itself, cosmological constant and vacuum energy, etc. This book should be valuable to researchers and students in the field of cosmology and particle astrophysics.Contents: Overview of Institutional Research Programs: Current and Future Research Programs at Stanford's Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (G Madejski) Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics at Kavli IPMU (H Aihara) Tsinghua Center for Astrophysics and the Dark Universe (C Tao) Gravity and Spacetime: Space, Time, Matter: 1918–2012 (G Veneziano) General Relativity without Paradigm of Space-Time Covariance: Sensible Quantum Gravity and Resolution of the “Problem of Time” (C Soo and H-L Yu) Quantum Corrections to Entropic Gravity (P Chen and C-H Wang) Black Holes and the Generalized Uncertainty Principle (B J Carr) New Perspective on Space and Time from Lorentz Violation (B-Q Ma) Foundations of Classical Electrodynamics, Equivalence Principle and Cosmic Interactions: A Short Exposition and an Update (W-T Ni, H-H Mei, and S-J Wu) Critical Acceleration and Quantum Vacuum (J Rafelski and L Labun) Temperature of Electron Fluctuations in an Accelerated Vacuum (L Labun and J Rafelski) Cosmology: Generalized G-Inflation: Inflation with the Most General Second-Order Field Equations (T Kobayashi, M Yamaguchi, and J Yokoyama) Brane-World Inflation: Perturbations and Cosmological Constraints (M Bouhmadi-Lopez, P Chen, and Y-W Liu) Testing the Origin of Primordial Perturbation — Use of Bispectrum and Trispectrum (T Suyama) Self-Accelerating Universe in Nonlinear Massive Gravity (A E Gumrukcuoglu, C Lin, and S Mukohyama) Inhomogeneous Barotropic FRW Cosmologies with Constant-Shifted Conformal Hubble Parameters (H C Rosu and K V Khmelnytskaya) Mysterious Anti-Gravity and Dark-Essence (J-A Gu) Local Inhomogeneities and the Value of the Cosmological Constant (A E Romano) Constraining a Model of Varying Alpha with Parity and Charge Parity Violation (D Maity and P Chen) Particle Astrophysics: Cosmic Connections: From Cosmic Rays to Gamma Rays, Cosmic Backgrounds and Magnetic Fields (A Kusenko) Fermi — Large Area Telescope: Accomplishments and Challenges (T Kamae) Ultra-Fast Flash Observatory (UFFO) for Observation of Early Photons from Gamma Ray Bursts (I H Park, S Ahmad, P Barrillon, S Brandt, C Budtz-Jorgensen, A J Castro-Tirado, P Chen, Y J Choi, P Connell, S Dagoret-Campagne, C Eyles, B Grossan, M-H A Huang, A Jung, S Jeong, J E Kim, M B Kim, S-W Kim, Y W Kim, A S Krasnov, J Lee, H Lim, E V Linder, T-C Liu, N Lund, K W Min, G W Na, J W Nam, M I Panasyuk, J Ripa, V Reglero, J M Rodrigo, G F Smoot, J E Suh, S Svertilov, N Vedenkin, M-Z Wang, and I Yashin) The UFFO Slewing Mirror Telescope for Early Optical Observation from Gamma Ray Bursts (J Nam) Neutrino Astronomy at the South Pole (A Karle) Neutrino Flavor Ratios on Earth under Decay and Oscillation Scenarios (T C Liu, K-C Lai, and G-L Lin) Distinguishability of Neutrino Flavors through Their Different Shower Characteristics (C-C Chen, P Chen, C-Y Hu, and K-C Lai) Cherenkov...