We review some recent studies about the parameter determination of top quarks,W bosons, Higgs bosons, supersymmetric particles and in the ADD model of extra dimensions at a linear collider.

In this talk I discuss a few selected topics in Higgs phenomenology at the LHC. After some brief remarks on the standard model Higgs I turn to more novel possibilities, discussing a heavy Higgs scenario, a light Higgs scenario and a no Higgs scenario. In the case of the light Higgs, I discuss briefly the physics opportunities afforded if it becomes possible to detect low angle scattered protons at the LHC.

The LHCb experiment is in preparation, to be ready for the start of the LHC. The physics which will be performed by LHCb is reviewed, focussing on what can be learnt fromB_s⁰ mesons.

We discuss applications of the perturbative QCD approach in the exclusive non-leptonic two-bodyB-meson decays. We briefly review its ingredients and some important theoretical issues on the factorization approach. PQCD results are compatible with present experimental data for charmless B-meson decays. We predict the possibility of large direct CP asymmetry in B⁰ → π⁺π⁻ (23 +7%) and B⁰ →K⁺π⁻ (− 17 ± 5%). We also investigate the branching ratios, CP asymmetry and isospin symmetry breaking in radiativeB →(K*/ρ)γ decays.

The importance of a super-B factory in the search for new physics, in particular, due to CP-odd phase(s) from physics beyond the standard model is surveyed. The first point to emphasize is that we now know how to directly measure all three angles of the unitarity triangle very cleanly, i.e. without theoretical assumptions with irreducible theory error ≲1%. However, this requires much more luminosity than is currently available atB-factories. Direct searches via penguin-dominated hadronic modes as well as radiative, pair-leptonic and semi-leptonic decays are also discussed. Null tests of the SM are stressed as these will play a crucial role especially if the effects of BSM phase(s) onB-physics are small.

In this talk, I review the recent results from RHIC and discuss their significance.

Since the turn of the millennium there has been tremendous progress in understanding QCD at finite chemical potential, μ. Apart from qualitative results obtained using models, and exact results at very large μ obtained in weak coupling theory, there has been tremendous progress in getting exact and quantitative results from lattice simulations. I summarize the status of lattice QCD at finite chemical potential —locating the critical end-point in the QCD phase diagram, predicting event-to-event fluctuation rates of conserved quantities, and finding the rate of strangeness production.

I review the status of, and discuss recent progress in the field of resummation, concentrating on QCD effects for hadron collider observables.

We review some of the recent developments in QCD spin physics and highlight the spin physics program now underway at RHIC.

The inflationary paradigm provides a robust description of the peculiar initial conditions which are required for the success of the hot Big Bang model of cosmology, as well as of the recent precision measurements of temperature fluctuations within the cosmic microwave background. Furthermore, the success of this description indicates that inflation is likely to be associated with physics at energies considerably higher than the weak scale, for which string theory is arguably our most promising candidate. These observations strongly motivate a detailed search for inflation within string theory, although it has (so far) proven to be a hunt for a fairly elusive quarry. This article summarizes some of the recent efforts along these lines, and draws some speculative conclusions as to what the difficulty in finding inflation might mean.

We present some physics possibilities with an iron calorimeter detector (ICAL) and a status report on the feasibility study to construct such a detector at a future possible India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO). This talk was given at the workshop on high energy physics phenomenology, WHEPP-8, in Jan. 2004, at IIT Bombay.

Many experiments are being planned to measure the neutrino mixing angles more precisely. In this note, the theoretical significance of a high precision measurement of these parameters is discussed. It is emphasized that they can provide crucial information about different ways to understand the origin of large atmospheric neutrino mixing and move us closer towards determining the neutrino mass matrix. They may also be able to throw light on the question of lepton-quark unification as well as the existence of any leptonic symmetries. For instance if exact μ↔ τ symmetry in the neutrino mass matrix is assumed to be the reason for maximalv_μ-v_gt mixing, one gets θ₁₃ = 0 and {ie1295-01} can provide information about the way the μ↔ τ symmetry breaking manifests in the case of normal hierarchy.

In this talk I review the physics that can be done at accelerator-based long baseline neutrino experiments, both current and future (those under construction and those that are proposed).

We present an overview of the implications of the WMAP data for particle physics. The standard parameter set ∈, η and ξ characterising the inflaton potential can be related to the power-law indices characterising deviation of the CMB spectrum from the scale invariant form. Different classes of inflation potentials are in turn naturally associated with different unified schemes. At present WMAP does not exclude any but a few simple unified models. In particular, hybrid models favoured by supersymmetric unification continue to be viable. However future improvement in data leading to better determination of the ‘running’ of power-law indices should help to narrow the possibilities for unified models. The main conclusion is that WMAP is consistent with the paradigm of GUT scale (10¹⁶ GeV) inflation.

This is a summary of the projects undertaken by the working group I on high energy and collider physics.

This is a report of the low energy and flavour physics working group at WHEPP-8, held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India, during 5–16 January 2004.

This is the report of the QCD working sub-group at WHEPP-8 which was part of the QCD and QGP working group. Discussion and work on some aspects of resummation and parton distribution are reported.

The 8th workshop on high energy physics phenomenology (WHEPP-8) was held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India during January 5–16, 2004. One of the four working groups, group III was dedicated to QCD and heavy ion physics (HIC). The present manuscript gives a summary of the activities of group III during the workshop (see also [1] for completeness). The activities of group III were focused to understand the collective behaviours of the system formed after the collisions of two nuclei at ultra-relativistic energies from the interactions of the elementary degrees of freedom, i.e. quarks and gluons, governed by non-abelian gauge theory, i.e. QCD. This was initiated by two plenary talks on experimental overview of heavy ion collisions and lattice QCD and several working group talks and discussions.

This is the report of neutrino and astroparticle physics working group at WHEPP-8. We present the discussions carried out during the workshop on selected topics in the above fields and also indicate progress made subsequently. The neutrino physics subgroup studied the possibilities of constraining neutrino masses, mixing and CPT violation in lepton sector from future experiments. Neutrino mass models in the context of Abelian horizontal symmetries, warped extra dimensions and in the presence of triplet Higgs were studied. Effect of threshold corrections on radiative magnification of mixing angles was investigated. The astroparticle physics subgroup focused on how various particle physics inputs affect the CMBR fluctuation spectrum, and on brane cosmology. This report also contains an introduction on how to use the publicly available code CMBFAST to calculate the CMBR fluctuations.

We argue that neutrino flavor parameters may exhibit features that are very different from those of quarks and charged leptons. Specifically, within the Proggatt-Nielsen (FN) framework, charged fermion parameters depend on the ratio between two scales, while for neutrinos a third scale — that of lepton number breaking — is involved. Consequently, the selection rules for neutrinos may be different. In particular, if the scale of lepton number breaking is similar to the scale of horizontal symmetry breaking, neutrinos may become flavor-blind even if they carry different horizontal charges. This provides an attractive mechanism for neutrino flavor anarchy.