The review articles are comprehensive and self-contained and report on the most important developments in the corresponding subjects. Each review article provides a complete list of references, which is especially useful for graduate students who are just starting their research activities; even ambitious undergraduates in physics can use these review papers as useful background material to go further into the subject and explore the research literature. They are contributed by prominent senior scientists: M Moniez (Laboratoire de l'Accelerateur Lineare, France) and V Sahni (Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), India) in Astrophysics and Cosmology, W Nahm (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), Ireland) in Conformal Field Theory, J Lukierski (University of Wroclaw, Poland) in Mathematical Physics, Riazuddin and Fayyazuddin (Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan) in High Energy Physics, N Dadhich (Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), India) and A Qadir (National University of Science and Technology, Pakistan) in General Relativity, and N Tsintsadze (Tbilisi State University, Georgia) in Plasma Physics.

Contents:

• Astrophysics and Cosmology:
• Does Transparent Hidden Matter Generate Optical Scintillation? (M Moniez)
• Galactic MACHO Budget: Problems and Possible Solution with the Abundant Brown Dwarfs (S Rahvar)
• The Mysterious Nature of Dark Energy (V Sahni)
• Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics:
• Two-Band Ginzburg–Landau Theory and Its Application to Recently Discovered Superconductors (I N Askerzade)
• Charge and Magnetization Plateaux in Strongly Correlated Systems (A Langari)
• Exactly Solvable Problems for Two-Dimensional Excitons (D G W Parfitt & M E Portnoi)
• High Energy Physics – Phenomenology:
• SU_L(4) x U(1) Model for Electroweak Unification (Fayyazuddin)
• Some Remarks on Neutrino Mass Matrix (Riazuddin)
• General Relativity and Quantum Gravity:
• Probing Universality of Gravity (N Dadhich)
• Observing Black Holes (P De Paolis et al.)
• Constraint Algebra in Causal Loop Quantum Gravity (F Shojai & A Shojai)
• Mathematical Physics:
• Quantum Deformations of Relativistic Symmetries: Some Recent Developments (J Lukierski)
• Thermodynamics Bethe Ansatz (TBA) (W Nahm)
• Hidden Property of Extended Jordanian Twists for Lie Superalgebras (V N Tolstoy)
• Noncommutative Field Theory and String Theory:
• Exact Wilsonian Effective Superpotential for Noncommutative N = 1 Supersymmetric U(1) (F Ardalan & N Sadooghi)
• Aspects of Noncommutative Gauge Theories and Their Commutative Equivalents (R Banerjee)
• Plasma Physics:
• Relativistic Thermodynamics of the Strong Magnetized Dense Electron Plasma (N L Tsintsadze)
• and other papers