abstract

In these lectures the particle physics-cosmology connection is reviewed. In the first lecture the standard big bang model, including inflation and baryosynthesis, is outlined. In the second lecture dark matter and some prospects for its detection are discussed. The third lecture explores the role of flat directions in cosmology.

abstract

Intermittency is observed in all types of collision. It tends to be strongest in \(e^+e^-\) and weakest in nucleus–nucleus collisions. Jet-cascading is the most likely interpretation of the effect. Presently used cascading models are, however, too weak to reproduce it and a new hadronization picture may be needed.

abstract

A short review of the method for calculation of elastic scattering and multiple production cross section in nucleus–nucleus interactions in Glauber approach is presented.

abstract

By introducing a variable lightlike vector \(k^{\mu }\) the light-cone gauge algebra of the bosonic string oscillators is rewritten in an apparently covariant form and it is shown that the apparent covariance becomes true covariance if, and only if, the parameters take the usual critical values. In particular it is shown that the \(k\)-independence of physical quantities is equivalent to the usual closure of the Lorentz group for fixed \(k^{\mu }\) and also to the zero-curvature of the light-cone-gauge surface. The connection of the \(k\)-formalism with the BRST formalism, and with other aspects of physics, notably spontaneous. symmetry breaking mechanisms, is discussed.

abstract

The main topic of my talks is a set of relations (D. Bennet, H.B. Nielsen, I. Picek, Phys. Lett. 208B, 275 (1988)) between the fine structure constants of the standard model which fit the experimental couplings surprisingly well. These relations were inspired from random dynamics’, a project (H.B. Nielsen, D. Bennett, N. Brene, in Recent Developments in Quantum Field Theory, Proc. of the Niels Bohr Centennial Conference, Copenhagen 1985. eds. J. Ambjørn, B.J. Durhuus, J.L. Petersen, North Holland, Amsterdam 1985) on which I and several collaborators and also others have worked since long, and in particular from ideas about what we call confusion (H.B. Nielsen, N. Brene, in Proc. of the XVIII International Symposium, Ahrenshoop, Institut fur Hochenenergiephysik, Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, Berlin-Zeuthen 1985). The basic assumption of the random dynamics project is that the fundamental physical ‘laws’ are so complicated that it is best to treat them as random, and furthermore that for phenomena that are practically accessible it does not matter precisely which random model Nature happens to make use of. As a subject that is in a sense not even physics but yet inspired from considerations of random dynamics I shall also talk about a prediction saying that the human race should be extinct or decrease appreciably in population within a few hundred years!