INTERREGIONAL CENTRE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES

FOREWORD

The 13^th Lomonosov Conference on Elementary Particle Physics was held at the Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia) on August 23-29, 2007 under the Patronage of the Rector of the Moscow State University Victor Sadovnichy.

               The conference was organized by the Faculty of Physics and Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Moscow State University  in cooperation with the Interregional Centre for Advanced Studies and supported by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna), the Institute for Nuclear Research (Moscow), the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (Novosibirsk) and the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (Moscow). The Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Agency for Science and Innovation, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Dmitry Zimin “Dynasty” Foundation 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, 11^th  and 12^th Lomonosov Conferences (entitled “Particle Physics at the Start of the New Millennium”, “Frontiers of Particle Physics”, “Particle Physics in Laboratory, Space and Universe” and “Particle Physics at the Year of 250^th Anniversary of Moscow University”) were published by World Scientific Publishing Co. (Singapore) in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2006, correspondently.

               The physics programme of the 13^th Lomonosov Conference on Elementary Particle Physics (August, 2007) 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 350 participants with 113 talks including 32 plenary (30 min) talks, 48 session (25-20 min) talks and 33 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.  The Round table discussion on “Dark Matter and Dark Energy: a Clue to Foundations of Nature” was held during the last day of the 13^th Lomonosov 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 7^th International Meeting on Problems of Intelligentsia held during the 13^th Lomonosov Conference (August 29, 2007) was dedicated to discussions on the issue “Rights and Responsibility of the Intelligentsia”.

               The success of the 13^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 13^th Lomonosov Conference and the 7^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, Alexey Sissakian, the Director of the Institute for Nuclear Research, Victor  Matveev, the Director of the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, Alexander Skrinsky, and the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Physics of the Moscow State University, Anatoly Kozar for the support in organizing these two conferences.

Special thanks are due to Alexander Suvorinov (the Russian Agency for Science and Innovations), Gennady Kozlov (JINR) and Oleg Patarakin (the Russian Agency for Atomic Energy) for their very valuable help.

I would like to thank  Giorgio Chiarelli,  Dmitri Denisov, Francesca Di Lodovico, Hassan Jawahery, Andrey Kataev,  Cristina Lazzaroni, William C. Louis, Frank Merrit, Thomas Müller, Tatsuya Nakada, Daniel Pitzl, Jacob Schneps, Claude Vallee and Horst Wahl for their help in planning of the scientific programme of the meeting and inviting speakers for the topical sessions of the conference.

Furthermore, I am very pleased to mention Alexander Grigoriev, the Scientific Secretary of the conference, Andrey Egorov, Mila Polyakova, Dmitry Zhuridov, Dasha Novikova, Maxim Perfilov and Katya Salobaeva 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 Agency for Science and Innovations and the Russian Agency for Atomic Energy.

                                                                                                     Alexander Studenikin