News

• Conference a Success— we would like to thank all of you who helped make PASCOS'04 / NathFest a such a resounding success and hope that you had a great time here in Boston, just as we had a great time acting as hosts. Our best wishes go to the organizers of PASCOS '05 (13-18 June, Gyeongju, Korea), PASCOS '06 (10-15 September, OSU, Columbus, Ohio), and PASCOS '07 (2-7 July, Imperial College, London) and we hope to see you there.
  
• Proceedings: The Proceedings are now available from World Scientific in two volumes: PASCOS 2004, Part I: Particles, Strings and Cosmology (ed. George Alverson, Emanuela Barberis, Pran Nath and Michael T Vaughn) and Part II: Themes in Unification — The Pran Nath Festschrift (ed. George Alverson and Michael T Vaughn).

The 10th international symposium on Particles, Strings and Cosmology was held at Northeastern University, Boston, August 16-22, 2004. PASCOS is an interdisciplinary symposium on the interface of particle physics, string theory and cosmology. It originated at Northeastern University in 1990 and since then it has been held at several other leading institutions, i.e., at Berkeley, Syracuse, the Johns Hopkins, UC Davis, Chapel Hill, and most recently at TIFR (Mumbai). The symposium brings together leading experts in the three disciplines to discuss their interconnections, assess the current progress and the possible future directions. There is a strong experimental component in the scientific program with a number of experimental talks in the area of particle physics and of cosmology.

This year the symposium included a special program (the Pran Nath Fest) honoring Matthews Distinguished University Professor Pran Nath on his 65th birthday for his pioneering contributions over four decades in the fields of high energy theory, supersymmetry, supergravity, and unification. This program took placeWednesday and Thursday (18 and 19 August). The conference banquet was held on Wednesday evening.

SYMPOSIUM TOPICS
The symposium covered the following topics.

• Large Scale Structure of the Universe
• WMAP Data and Implications
• Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics
• SUSY and Higgs Phenomenology
• Extra Dimensions
• Flavor Problem and CP Violation
• Dark Matter
• M Theory
• SUGRA/Strings/Brane Models
• Strings and Black Holes
• String Cosmology
• Future Directions

Participation of graduate students, post docs and junior faculty was strongly encouraged.

INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Along with the previous PASCOS chairs a number of leading theorists and experimentalists have agreed to serve on the international advisory committee of the symposium. These include

Jonathan Bagger (Johns Hopkins)
John Bahcall (Institute for Advanced Study)
John Ellis (CERN)
Paul Frampton (Chapel Hill)
Margaret Geller (Harvard Smithsonian)
Sheldon Glashow (BU)
David Gross (ITP, Santa Barbara)
Jack Gunion (U California, Davis)
Pran Nath (NU)
Pierre Ramond (U Florida)
Norman Ramsey (Harvard)
D.P.Roy (TIFR)
John Schwarz (Caltech)
Joseph Silk (Oxford)
Yoji Totsuka (KEK, Japan)
Michael T. Vaughn (NU)
Alexander Vilenkin (Tufts)
Albrecht Wagner (DESY)
Kameshwar C. Wali (Syracuse)
Steven Weinberg (U Texas, Austin)
Frank Wilczek (MIT)

In addition to the invited talks there were a number of contributed talks for which abstracts were submitted via email at pascos04_NathFest@neu.edu or through the registration web page. All the details of the conference related to accommodations, registration, etc. can be found on the conference web page and will be updated periodically. The conference web page is accessible at both http://www.pascos04.neu.edu and http://www.nathfest.neu.edu.

LODGING
The participants are responsible for their own hotel arrangements. Boston is an attractive tourist city and the hotel situation is generally very tight. Thus the participants are advised to make their hotel reservation now even if they may not be fully sure of their plans. A list of hotels and motels in a few mile radius of Northeastern University is available on our site. Further, Northeastern University has agreed to provide a significant number of spaces in the student dormitories right on campus within a hundred yard or so of the symposium lecture halls. These accommodations are significantly cheaper and may be reserved through our web site (this requires pre-payment of the charges).

LOGISTICS
The symposium will be held at the main campus of Northeastern University, at 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, 02115 MA. The symposium will begin on the morning of Monday August 16 and end on the afternoon of Sunday 22. The nearest airport is the Boston Logan airport. If you wish to come directly to the University, there are two subway stations on campus, the Green Line Northeastern station, and the Orange Line Ruggles station (see www.massport.com for information on transportation from the airport). However, the most convenient way to get to the university and nearby hotels is by taxi which should cost around $25 from the airport.

A map of the university is available at www.campusmap.neu.edu.

PROCEEDINGS
The proceedings of PASCOS04 and of NathFestscrift will be published separately in two volumes. The papers for all the talks given at the symposium and at the Fest will be included. The instructions for the preparation of manuscripts for the proceedings will be made available on the web.

REGISTRATION
The participants are requested to register via the web. The registration fee is $375 if paid before July 1, 2004 and $425 thereafter. Students and retirees are eligible for a reduced fee of $150. Payment may be made either by credit card (using the secure web page linked to the registration page) or by an international money order or a personal check drawn on a US bank payable to Northeastern University with a notation at the bottom left hand side mentioning Pascos04_NathFest and mailed to the following address:

Pascos04_NathFest Symposium
Department of Physics
Northeastern University
Boston, MA, 02115
USA

If the payment is on arrival it should be made in cash in US dollars or by a recognized credit card (Visa/Master Card/Discover).

The symposium funds are very limited. Part of these have been used to keep the registration fee at an affordable level. Thus the participants are expected to pay the registration fees, travel and housing using their own grant monies.

LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: George Alverson, Luis A. Anchordoqui, Emanuela Barberis, Darien Wood, Haim Goldberg, Tarek Ibrahim, Tom Paul, Stephen Reucroft, Yogi Srivastava, John Swain, Tomasz Taylor, Michael T. Vaughn (Chair).

PASCOS04/NathFest is hosted by Northeastern University and the Northeasthern University Department of Physics, Dana Research Center, 110 Forsythe Street, Boston, MA 02115. Directions to the University are available from the link at http://www.campusmap.neu.edu. For general information and links to attractions in Boston and the surrounding region (such as the Museum of Fine Arts or the Boston Red Sox baseball team), see the University's page on Boston.