INTERREGIONAL CENTRE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES 

FOREWORD

The 12^th Lomonosov Conference on Elementary Particle Physics was held at the Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia) on August 25-31, 2005.  The conference was dedicated to the 250^th Anniversary of the Moscow State University.

                The conference was organized by the Faculty of Physics of the Moscow State University and the Interregional Centre for Advanced Studies and supported by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna), the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (Moscow), the Institute for Nuclear Research (Moscow), the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (Novosibirsk) and the Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics (Moscow State University). The Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Agency for Science and Innovation, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Agency for Atomic Energy sponsored the conference.

                It was more than twenty years ago when the first of the series of conferences (from 1993 called the “Lomonosov Conferences”), was held at the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Moscow State University (June 1983, Moscow). The second conference was held in Kishinev, Republic of Moldavia, USSR (May 1985).

                After the four years break this series was resumed on a new conceptual basis for the conference programme focus. During the preparation of the third conference (that was held in Maykop, Russia, 1989) a desire to broaden the programme to include more general issues in particle physics became apparent. During the conference of the year 1992 held in Yaroslavl it was proposed by myself and approved by numerous participants that these irregularly held meetings should be transformed into regular events under the title “Lomonosov Conferences on Elementary Particle Physics”. Since then at subsequent meetings of this series a wide variety of interesting things both in theory and experiment of particle physics, field theory, astrophysics, gravitation and cosmology were included into the programmes. It was also decided to enlarge the number of institutions that would take part in preparation of future conferences.

                Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765), a brilliant Russian encyclopaedias of the era of the Russian Empress Catherine the 2nd, was world renowned for his distinguished contributions in the fields of science and art. He also helped establish the high school educational system in Russia. The Moscow State University was founded in 1755 based on his plan and initiative, and the University now bears the name of Lomonosov.

                The 6^th Lomonosov Conference on Elementary Particle Physics (1993) and all of the subsequent conferences of this series were held at the Moscow State University on each of the odd years.  Publication of the volume "Particle Physics, Gauge Fields and Astrophysics" containing articles written on the basis of presentations at the 5^th and 6^th Lomonosov Conferences was supported by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Rome, 1994). Proceedings of the 7^th and 8^th Lomonosov Conference (entitled “Problems of Fundamental Physics” and “Elementary Particle Physics”) were published by the Interregional Centre for Advanced Studies (Moscow, 1997 and 1999). Proceedings of the 9^th, 10^th  and 11^th Lomonosov Conferences (entitled “Particle Physics at the Start of the New Millennium”, “Frontiers of Particle Physics” and “Particle Physics in Laboratory, Space and Universe”) were published by World Scientific Publishing Co. (Singapore) in 2001, 2003 and 2005, correspondently.

                The physics programme of the 12^th Lomonosov Conference on Elementary Particle Physics (August, 2005) included review and original talks on wide range of items such as neutrino and astroparticle physics, electroweak theory, fundamental symmetries, tests of standard model and beyond, heavy quark physics, non-perturbative QCD, quantum gravity effects, physics at the future accelerators. Totally there were more than 300 participants with 107 talks including 34 plenary (30 min) talks, 38 session (25-20 min) talks and 35 brief (15 min) reports. One of the goals of the conference was to bring together scientists, both theoreticians and experimentalists, working in different fields, so that no parallel sessions were organized at the conference.  

Following the tradition that has started in 1995, each of the Lomonosov Conferences on particle physics has been accompanied by a conference on problems of intellectuals. The 6^th International Meeting on Problems of Intelligentsia held during the 12^th Lomonosov Conference (August 31, 2003) was dedicated to discussions on the issue “Intelligentsia and Violence: Responses to Repression and Terrorism ”.  Three papers on this subject are included into this volume.

                The Round table discussion on “Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics” was held during the last day of the 12^th Lomonosov Conference. The main results of the of the Round Table discussion were summarized in the Memorandum on “Neutrino and Astroparticle Physics” approved by the participants of the conference:

“The progress in particle physics comes from both the high energy frontier and precision experiments. This applies to accelerator and non-accelerator physics. In the last years, field like neutrino physics, astroparticle physics and cosmology have had an spectacular development.

One may anticipate that these clues to the knowledge of nature will develop more along the XXI century, particular when taking into account the longer time periods involved in the construction of higher energy facilities.

There has been important progress in neutrino and astroparticle physics achieved during the last several years: 

·         The non-vanishing neutrino mass and flavour violation has been observed in neutrino oscillation experiments.

·         The validity of the Standard Solar Model has also been proven.

·         The non-zero neutrino mass can have an important impact on cosmology, in particular, for our understanding of the baryon asymmetry of the universe. On the other hand, the upper boundary of the sum of three neutrino masses can now be constrained on the level of the order of 1 eV from cosmology.

·         Observations of tritium beta-decay have lowered the neutrino upper mass limit to the level of  2.1  eV.

·         Double  beta  decay  experiments have reached a sensitivity

        ~  (0.5 – 1) eV for effective Majorana mass of the neutrino.

                World-wide recognition of the obtained results has been evidenced by two Nobel Prizes which have been recently awarded for research in neutrino and astroparticle physics. 

Further progress in the study of the fundamental properties of neutrinos will open the window to a new physics. Application of these studies could also play a very important role in our understanding of the inner structure of stellar cores as well as of the early stages of evolution of the universe.  Studies of geo neutrinos also open promising possibilities for the future.

More accurate measurements of neutrino characteristics will make further progress in the field possible. Our conference also focused on the need to train specialized manpower in this field for the future”.

    The success of the 12^th Lomonosov Conference was due in a large part to contributions of the International Advisory Committee and Organizing Committee. On behalf of these Committees I would like to warmly thank the session chairpersons, the speakers and all of the participants of the 12^th Lomonosov Conference and the 6^th International Meeting on Problems of Intelligentsia.

We are grateful to the Rector of the Moscow State University, Victor Sadovnichy, the Vice Rector of the Moscow State University, Vladimir Belokurov, the Dean of the Faculty of Physics, Vladimir Trukhin,  the Director of the Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, Mikhail Panasyuk, the Directors of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Vladimir Kadyshevsky and Alexey Sissakian, the Director of the Institute for Nuclear Research, Victor  Matveev, the Director of the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, Alexander Skrinsky, the Vice Director of the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Mikhael Danilov,  and the Vice Deans of the Faculty of Physics of the Moscow State University, Anatoly Kozar and Pavel Kashkarov for the support in organizing these two conferences.

Special thanks are due to Inna Bilenkina and Alexander Suvorinov (the Russian Agency for Science and Innovations), Nelli Khrustaleva (the Russian Agency of Education), Boris F. Myasoedov (the Russian Academy of Sciences) and Oleg Patarakin (the Russian Agency for Atomic Energy) for their valuable help.

I would like to thank Concezio Bozzi, Alexander Dolgov, Andrey Kataev, Catherine Leluc, Lev Okun, Alexander Olshevsky and Alexey Smirnov for their help in planning of the scientific programme of the conference and inviting speakers for the topical sessions of the meeting.

Furthermore, I am very pleased to mention Alexander Grigoriev, the Scientific Secretary of the conference, Andrey Egorov, Artyem Ivanov, Sergey Shinkevich, and Marina Mescheraykova, Maria Moiseeva, Olya Moiseeva, Nastay Sutormina for their very efficient work in preparing and running the meeting.

These Proceedings were prepared for publication at the Interregional Centre for Advanced Studies with support by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Agencies for Science and Innovations and Education, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Agency for Atomic Energy.                                                                                                  

                                                                                      Alexander Studenikin

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