Planck Scale Kinematics and the Pierre Auger Observatory

摘要

Quite unexpectedly, to many of us at least, Planck scale physics has in last years made irruption in present experimental physics. In these lectures I try to describe why this happened particularly in relation to Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray Physics, and will discuss the potentialities of experiments in this field, in particular of the Pierre Auger Observatory. I will also present some (more theoretical) speculations.