Interactions of Particles, Fields and Strings

该奖项资助哈佛大学物理系教授Howard Georgi和Cumrun Vafa以及博士后和学生的研究活动。本计划涵盖的研究领域包括两大类：一类是粒子物理学，另一类是弦理论。粒子物理方面将涉及发展一种描述粒子高能散射的新思想，使用碰撞的后果涉及从粒子碰撞位置发出的能量壳层的思想。这是Georgi和他的学生目前正在开发的一个领域。在弦理论中，基本物体是弦，而不是粒子。所有的弦理论都存在于更高的维数中，而将这些维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，包括各种减少维数的方法。Georgi在粒子物理学方面的工作将涉及光壳有效理论（LSET）的发展。希望这种方法能够提供一种不同的有效理论，涉及大型强子对撞机（LHC）遇到的高能散射，补充目前使用的软共线有效理论方法，并可能导致分析这些碰撞中产生的大量粒子的新方法。在弦理论方面，Vafa将继续他的工作，以更好地理解超共形理论，这些理论已经被发现存在于5维和6维中。这些理论涉及无张力弦。它们的配分函数的计算是近年来发展起来的，它们与（扭转）拓扑弦的关系是研究的重点。

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.