The Abdus Salam Memorial Meeting, Trieste, Italy, 19-22 November 1997

290 Pages·1999·13.357 MB·English

by  Ellis, John

THE ABDUS SALAM
MEMORIAL MEETING

the
abdus salam
international centre for theoretical physics
...-. (j\
iif[f1J united nations educational, scientific international atomic
~ and cultural organization energy agency ~
THE ABDUS SALAM
MEMORIAL MEETING
Trieste, Ito~ 19-22 November 1997
Editors
J. Ellis
(CERN)
F. Hussain
(ICTP)
T. Kibble
(Imperial College, London)
G. Thompson
(ICTP)
M. Virasoro
(ICTP)
118
World Scientific
Singapore. New Jersey· London· Hong Kong
Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
POBox 128, Farrer Road, Singapore 912805
USA office: Suite lB, 1060 Main Street, River Edge, NJ 07661
UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE
Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data
Abdus Salam Memorial Meeting (1997: Trieste, Italy)
The Abdus Salam Memorial Meeting: Trieste, Italy, 19-22 November
1997 I editors, 1. Ellis ... ret al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. - ).
ISBN 9810236190
I. Particles (Nuclear physics) --Congresses. 2. Standard model
(Nuclear physics) --Congresses. I. Ellis, John, 1946-
II. Title.
QC793.A285 1997
539. 7'2--dc2 I 98-49297
CIP
British Library Cataloguing-In-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copyright © 1999 by The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in Singapore by Uto-Print
FOREWORD
The Abdus Salam Memorial Meeting was held from the 19th to the 22nd
of November, 1997 on the first anniversary of the death of Prof. Abdus Salam,
Nobel Laureate and the Founder-Director of the International Centre for The
oretical Physics. It was an opportunity for many of his colleagues and students
to pay homage to his memory. The participants included Salam's family. For
mer students of Salam arrived from the farthest corners of the globe to pay
tribute to his memory.
The scientific papers presented at the Meeting by some of the top experts
in the field reflected the long lasting passion of Salam for the theory of the
fundamental forces. Many of the contributions include personal reminiscences
of Salam. The Meeting was opened with Tom Kibble's recollections of Salam
at Imperial College. John Ellis reviewed the current status of the Standard
Model of particle physics, "Salam's legacy". Most of the other contributions
were concerned with developments beyond the Standard Model based on ideas
of supersymmetry and superstring theory including recent developments like
duality, D-branes and related topics. The contributions give a good picture of
the field as it stood at the time of the meeting. In the last years of his life
Salam was very interested in the developments that were taking place in string
theory and we are sure that this volume would have been looked on by him
favourably.
On the 21st of November there was a special ceremony to celebrate the
renaming of the ICTP as the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoret
ical Physics, with some very moving reminiscences paying homage to Salam
as a great human being and physicist. Apart from many of Salam's students,
colleagues and collaborators, representatives of the Italian Government, the In
ternational Atomic Energy Agency, UNESCO and the local authorities were all
present at this ceremony: These reminiscences are being published separately.
The Organisers of the Meeting would like to thank all the speakers and
participants. Special thanks go to all the staff of the Centre for their unstinting
help in the organisation and smooth running of the Meeting. In particular we
would like to thank Anne Gatti and Katrina Danforth of the Director's office
for their contributions.
J. Ellis
T. Kibble
F. Hussain
G. Thompson
M. Virasoro
v

CONTENTS
Thomas W. B. Kibble 1
Recollections of Abdus Salam at Imperial College
John Ellis 12
The Standard Model: Abdus Salam's Lasting Legacy
Dennis W. Sciama 30
Going Beyond the Salam-Weinberg Standard Model with
Decaying Neutrinos
Nathan Seiberg 50
The Superworld
S. Randjbar-Daemi 63
Aspects of Six Dimensional Supersymmetric Theories
Jiri Niederle 78
Discrete Symmetries and Supersymmetries - Powerful Tools
for Studying Quantum Mechanical Systems
Gabriele Veneziano 86
Pre-Big Bang Cosmology: A Long History of Time?
Jogesh C. Pati 98
With Neutrino Masses Revealed, Proton Decay is the
Missing Link
Daniele Amati 128
String Theory, Black Holes and Quantum Coherence
Ergin Sezgin 133
Topics in M-Theory
Michael J. Duff 184
A Layman's Guide to M-Theory
vii
viii
Michael B. Green 214
Quantum Corrections to Eleven-Dimensional Supergravity
Sergio Ferrara 233
BPS States and Supersymmetry
Spenta R. Wadia 243
Micro-States of the 5-Dimensional Black Hole
K. S. Narain 256
Bound States of Branes
Cumrun Vafa 263
Minimal Cycles, Black-Holes and QFT's
RECOI,LECTIONS OF ABDUS SALAM
AT IMPERIAL COLLEGE
TOM KIBBLE
Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College,
London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom
I shall talk about the work of Professor Abdus Salam and his Group at Imperial
College from the perspective of a member of the Group, concentrating mainly but
not exclusively on the period leading up to the discovery of the unified electro-weak
theory.
It is a great honour for me to have been asked to give the opening talk
at the Abdus Salam Memorial Meeting here at the Centre that is to bear his
name. Like many other speakers, lowe an enormous debt of gratitude to
Abdus Salam. He had a profound influence on my career; I have always felt
that it was a stroke of great good fortune that I joined the Imperial College
Theoretical Physics Group in 1959, less than three years after it was founded
by Abdus Salam.
1 The Imperial College Theoretical Physics Group
Salam came to Imperial College in January 1957, as Professor of Applied Math
ematics - later Theoretical Physics - a post he held until his retirement in
1993, though latterly on a part-time basis. He came at the invitation of Patrick
Blackett, then Head ofthe Physics Department at Imperial. Blackett had been
looking for a top-rank young theoretical physicist, and had consulted Bethe,
who recommended Salam. Salam accepted, despite Neville Mott's warning
against joining that "plumbers' college"! It was arranged that his friend and
collaborator Paul Matthews should go too, as a Reader. Over the next few
years, Salam and Matthews together built up at Imperial College one of the
finest theoretical physics groups in Britain, and indeed the world.
It was a very exciting place to be. We had numerous visitors: Steven
Weinberg, Murray Gell-Mann, Ken Johnson, Lowell Brown, Stanley Mandel
starn, John Ward, to name but a few. The year I arrived, 1959, was also the
year that Salam became the youngesi Fellow of the Royal Society at the age
of 33. Besides Salam and Maithews there was then one other faculty member,
Salam's former student John C. Taylor. I became a Lecturer in 1961.
Initially we were part of the Mathematics Department, housed in the old
Huxley Building, the site of the Royal College of Science in Thomas Huxley's