Interactions of Particles, Fields and Strings

该奖项资助哈佛大学物理系教授霍华德Georgi和Cumrun Vafa沿着博士后和学生的研究活动。该项目涵盖的研究领域包括两大类：一个是粒子物理学，另一个是弦理论。粒子物理学方面将涉及一个新的想法，在描述粒子的高能量散射的想法，碰撞的后果涉及一个壳的能量，从粒子的碰撞部位发出的发展。这是一个领域，目前正在开发的格奥尔基和他的学生。 在弦理论中，基本的对象是弦，而不是粒子。 所有的弦理论都存在于更高的维度中，而将这些维度减少到四维的方法可以导致可以与实验进行比较的理论。 瓦法将继续他的工作，以更好地理解这些理论，包括减少维数的各种方法。 格奥尔基在粒子物理学方面的工作将涉及LSET（光壳有效理论）的发展。希望这种方法将给出一个不同的有效理论，涉及高能散射，在大型强子对撞机（LHC）遇到的类型，补充目前使用的软共线有效理论的方法，并可能导致分析大量的粒子在这些碰撞中产生的新方法。 在弦理论方面瓦法将继续他的工作，更好地了解超共形理论已被发现存在于5和6维。这些理论涉及无张力弦。它们的配分函数的计算最近得到了发展，它们与（twistorial）拓扑弦的关系是这项工作的主要焦点。

This award funds the research activities of Professors Howard Georgi and Cumrun Vafa at the Physics Department of Harvard University, along with post-docs and students. The area of research covered by this project includes two broad classes: One in particle physics and the other in string theory. The particle physics side will involve the development of a new idea in describing the high energy scattering of particles using the idea that the aftermath of collisions involves a shell of energy which emanates from the collision site of the particles. This is an area which is currently being developed by Georgi and his students. In string theory, the fundamental objects are strings, not particles. All string theories exist in a higher number of dimensions, and the method of reducing these to four dimensions can lead to theories that can be compared with experiments. Vafa will be continuing his work on better understanding of these theories, including the various methods of reducing the numbers of dimensions. Georgi's work in particle physics will involve the development of LSET (Light-Shell effective theory). The hope is that this approach will give a different effective theory involving high energy scatterings, of the type encountered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), complementary to the Soft Collinear Effective Theory approach currently used, and may lead to new methods of analyzing the large number of particles produced in these collisions. On the string theory front Vafa will be continuing his work on better understanding of superconformal theories which have been discovered to exist in 5 and 6 dimensions. These theories involve tensionless strings. Computation of their partition functions have been developed recently and their relation to (twistorial) topological string is the major focus of this effort.