CORDIS

The purpose of the network was to conduct research and provide excellent training to young researchers on both theoretical and phenomenological aspects on the physics of fundamental forces among elementary particles. The basic issues are: (i) to probe the physics of strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions beyond the current theory (Standard Model) which describes them accurately up to distances of the order of 10^-15 cm; (ii) to unify their quantum description together with the gravitational force. The directions of research are strongly motivated by the large amount of experimental data expected during the next years, and by the prospect of important progress in several areas of theoretical physics.

During the four years of the contract, the network produced 491 joint publications (involved at least two different nodes) that have received already about 10000 citations. The main topics of activity where breakthroughs were obtained are (i) Higgs phenomenology, (ii) models of fermion masses and neutrino oscillations based on non-abelian discrete symmetries, (iii) supersymmetry phenomenology, (iv) split supersymmetry, (v) naturalness and electroweak precision tests, (vi) new approaches to the hierarchy problem (vii) methods of supersymmetry breaking mediation, (viii) methods for computing non-gaussianity in primordial fluctuations, (ix) dark matter candidates (x) moduli stabilisation, supersymmetry breaking and string model building, (xi) low energy couplings from string instanton effects (xii) holographic description of QCD, (xiii) ultraviolet properties and possible finiteness of N=8 supergravity, (xiv) tachyon condensation.

During the four years of the contract, the network employed 20 young researchers (16 ER and 4 ESR) and provided 363.5 person months (51 ESR + 312.5 ER), which represents an amount of 15 ESR + 1/2 ER months more than the initial plan. The majority of the selected ESR/ER's (13/20) were previously in institutes related to (other) network nodes, either as students or as postdocs, while a big fraction of those who terminate their appointment (14/20) remained in the network institutes on different funds or on better positions. Three female scientists were hired as ER for a total of 52 months, while four young researchers originated from a country "outside" EU (corresponding to 53.5 months). During the four years of the contract, there were 79 publications involving young researchers; 45 of them were joint involving at least two different network nodes. There were four regular network meetings, four more major meetings, as well as 46 additional "peripheral" ones organised and partly funded by the network.