This award supports the participation of US scientists in the 25th International Nathiagali Summer College on Physics and Contemporary Needs in Islamabad, Pakistan, June 26-July 15, 2000. Dr. Syed Arif Ahmad, Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Science, Islamabad, Pakistan is the organizer of the College. Professor Riazuddin, Physics Department, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan is the College director. Scientists from Europe, Pakistan and the United States will make presentations. Attendees include scientists, mostly recent Ph.D.'s, from a number of developing countries in the region, including Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Tajikistan, Turkey, as well as Pakistan. They also include graduate students from Pakistan. The areas to be covered are frontiers of high energy physics; astrophysics, cosmology and relativity; and condensed matter physics. Topics include the standard model of particle physics, supersymmetry and physics beyond four dimensions, precision electroweak tests and searches for the elusive Higgs particles, neutrino physics, evidence for neutrino oscillations from Super Kamiokandle and other detectors, superstrings and physics beyond four dimensions, heavy ion collisions and quark-gluon plasma, modern observations of the heavens using gamma astronomy, and gamma ray bursts. Interactive sessions in the afternoons are planned as part of the College. The organizers plan to publish a proceedings of the presentations.
Scope: This award enables seven US scientists to participate in an important teaching and discussion exercise with scientists and students from several developing countries, thus contributing to capacity building within those countries. This is the 25th year of the Summer College. In previous years, in addition to support from Pakistani sources, the College has been sponsored by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy; the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing; and the Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. One of the expected outcomes of the Summer College is the generation of ideas for cooperative research projects among the participants.
