A historic note on early development of the mirror matter idea by L. Okun
Lev Okun, one of the three former Soviet Union physicists, who first proposed the idea of mirror matter in 1966, wrote a very readable historic article “Mirror particles and mirror matter: 50 years of speculation and searching” [Okun, Phys.-Usp. 50, 380 (2007)].
Abstract
This review describes the history of the discovery of the violation of the spatial parity P, the charge conjugation parity C, and the combined parity CP. The hypothesis of the existence of mirror particles was intended by its authors to restore the symmetry between left and right. The review presents the emergence and evolution of the concepts of ‘mirror particles’ and ‘mirror matter’ and can serve as a concise travel guide to ‘mirror land.’ An important part of the review is the list of about 200 references with their titles.
Contents
1. Introduction 380
2. 1950s. Violation of P and C. Conservation of PC 380
3. 1960s. CP-violation 382
4. 1970s. ‘Minimum.’ Exotic vacua 382
5. 1980s. Revival 382
6. 1991 – 2006. ‘Maximum.’ From cosmology and astrophysics to LHC 383
7. Concluding remarks 384
References 384
