10w5039 Structure and representations of exceptional groups

Arriving Sunday, July 4 and departing Friday, July 9, 2010

Organizers: S. Twareque Ali (Concordia University), Wulf Rossmann (University of Ottawa), David Vogan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Joseph Wolf (University of California - Berkeley).

Confirmed Participants

Press Release: Structure and representations of exceptional groups

Information for Participants

Objectives

(1) A series of lectures on the standard model in physics, oriented toward mathematicians. This would essentialy be an exposition to the work of Sternberg and Ne'eman and its background.

(2) A series of lectures on exceptional Lie groups $G_2$, $F_4$ and $E_8$ in mathematics, oriented toward physicists, and then its reformulation by an $E_8$ - oriented physicist such as Mary K. Gaillard (Berkeley).

(3) A workshop on the structure of $E_8$. In particular, which real forms of $SL(5,C) times SL(5,C)$ can appear in a particular real form of $E_8$?

(4) Workshops and informal discussions between mathematicians and physicists to try to pin down precisely the key issues that might relate the standard model with models based on exceptional Lie groups

(5) Investigation of compatibility of the standard model with models based on exceptional Lie groups, in particular $E_8$ and its exceptional subgroups, and comparison of their predictions.

(6) Opening channels of communication between particle physicists and Lie group experts so that these investigations can carry on well beyond the BIRS workshop.