Ultra-High Energy Particle Astrophysics , Shigeru Yoshida Nova Science, Hauppauge, NY, 2003. $89.00 (163 pp.). ISBN 1-59033-593-7
Cosmic rays with energies greater than 1018 eV are the highest-energy particles in the known universe; where and how they are accelerated to such extraordinary energies is one of the most pressing problems in astrophysics. Although the current observational status looks like a bit of a mess, the study of ultrahigh-energy particles is coming of age, and astrophysicists have seen a constant improvement in the quality of experimental data. The Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina’s Pampa Amarilla has started to dramatically increase the number of recorded cosmic rays, and it promises to settle decisively some important observational issues. One example is the ongoing controversy concerning cosmic rays observed to have energies above a theoretical limit—the so-called GKZ cutoff—predicted by Kenneth Greisen, Vadem Kuzmin, and Georgi Zatsepin.
I was therefore rather excited to see a new textbook on cosmic-ray physics on the market. And the timing for Ultra-High Energy Particle Astrophysics by Shigeru Yoshida could hardly be better. However, the bar is high. A variety of books on astroparticle physics, even at the undergraduate level, now include well-written chapters on cosmic-ray physics. Simply being the newest book does not justify publication.
Yoshida has a long and distinguished track record in cosmic-ray research. He has worked on the Akeno Giant Air Shower Array (AGASA) cosmic-ray experiment in Japan and the High Resolution Fly’s Eye (HiRes) Experiment in Utah; both have contributed significantly—and still do contribute—to the advance of ultrahigh-energy cosmic-ray physics. Yoshida’s knowledge of the field shows, and he manages to squeeze a large number of relevant topics into a small volume of little more than 150 pages. In the first part of the book, he describes cosmic-ray acceleration and propagation in an expanding universe. After that rather theoretical section, he summarizes the observational status and some experimental aspects of the field. The last chapters offer several interesting special topics—for example, the possible connection between ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays and gamma-ray bursts or neutrino physics.
Those last chapters have the most to offer. They contain the outlines of a number of interesting calculations that one cannot easily find elsewhere in such a compact form. Readers with a healthy mathematical constitution will find a lot to enjoy.
Unfortunately, the book is, for the most part, disappointing. In the theoretical section, Yoshida tries to accomplish too much in too few pages. He describes his book as an “introductory textbook rather than a review for experts,” but large stretches of the text amount to little more than collections of formulas. In a section billed as a brief introduction to general relativity and cosmology, Yoshida merely confronts the reader with a lot of math; there’s almost no physics insight. His use of four-vector notation is often sloppy, and he takes it for granted that his nonexpert audience knows the comma derivative.
The chapters on experimental methods and observations suffer from a similar overabundance of formulas and dearth of explanation. Additionally, in my opinion, too much room is given to statistically unsound experimental results. That said, I find it laudable that Yoshida puts such a strong emphasis on observation.
Potential readers should be warned that the book is largely unedited and contains numerous errors, misleading expressions, and misspelled names of major scientists in the field. It appears that very little or no proofreading has gone into the book; that lack of care will, unfortunately, challenge the patience of even the most enthusiastic reader. One wonders how much more than the already steep price for this small volume one has to pay before Nova Science Publishers runs at least a spell check. The publisher also has to be blamed for the poor quality of many figures. Particularly bad are the black and white reprints of color plots, such as the figure-1.2 sky map of AGASA cosmic-ray arrival directions. Axis labels are often hard to read or, as in figure 5.13, misleading.
In summary, Ultra-High Energy Particle Astrophysics can serve as a useful collection of relevant formulas for scientists in the field. It is not a good book for nonexperts to read first, and it’s certainly not an introductory textbook. Students are better off reading older books like Thomas Gaisser’s Cosmic Rays and Particle Physics (Cambridge U. Press, 1990), supple-mented with some recent journal papers and reviews, or opting for the carefully crafted and well-written High Energy Cosmic Rays by Todor Stanev, published this year by Springer.
