Techniques and Concepts of High-Energy Physics (Nato Science Series B:)

This past July about sixty physicists from sixteen different countries gathered at St. Croix in the United States Virgin Islands for an Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on Techniques and Concepts of High Energy Physics. The initial idea for the Institute arose one blustery and miserable day at Fermilab during discussions about all the wonderful summer schools that were prevalent throughout Europe but essentially nonexistent in the United States. I felt that it would be of great value to have an Institute that was located in a beautiful area and that catered primarily to the hard working experimenters who stoically suffer both the winter cold and summer heat at Fermilab. Summer schools in our field generally provide the very useful opportunity of meeting physicists who work along different lines of research, as well as the opportunity of keeping abreast of new developments. All schools tend to emphasize recent theoretical advances and phenomenology, while technical questions that are of great interest to experimenters are seldom discussed. It seemed appropriate therefore to organize a summer institute that would combine topics in accelerator design, data acquisition and the like, with the more standard theoretical fare. This is the general idea that prevailed in setting up the program of the Institute at St.