PASCOS?

PASCOS is an interdisciplinary symposium on the interface of of PArticle physics, String theory and COSmology. Over the past two decades these three disciplines have increasingly become closer. Historically there was always a strong overlap between particle physics and cosmology. This connection has become even stronger with the realization that some of the fundamental issues in cosmology such as the presence of dark matter and dark energy may possibly find a resolution only via new theories of particle physics. At the same time string theory has begun to play an increasingly important role in particle physics as a possible framework for building unified models of particle interaction including gravity. Also over the recent years we have seen an increasing overlap between cosmology and string theory and currently the area of string cosmology is one of the most active fields of research. The PASCOS symposium provides a forum for the discussion of developments on the interface of the three disciplines and on their interconnections.

The first PASCOS symposium was conceived at Northeastern University where the first two of these symposia were held in 1990 and 1991. Since then the PASCOS symposium has been held at several other leading institutions. Following is a list of the institutions and of the previous PASCOS symposia chairs.

Institution	Symposium Chair
Northeastern University (1990,1991)	P. Nath
University of California, Berkeley (1992)	B. Sadoulet & J. Silk
Syracuse University (1994)	K.C. Wali
Johns Hopkins University (1995)	J. Bagger
Northeastern University (1998)	P. Nath
University of California, Davis (1999)	J. Gunion
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2001)	P. Frampton
TIFR, Mumbai (2003)	D.P. Roy