The Many Faces of the Superworld

Book excerpt: This invaluable volume is dedicated to the memory of Yuri Golfand, one of the discoverers of supersymmetry. Together with his student, he constructed in 1970 the superextension of the Poincar‚ algebra and obtained the first four-dimensional supersymmetric field theory, a version of supersymmetric QED. Golfand died in 1994 in Israel.Did the pioneers of supersymmetry ? Neveu, Schwarz, Ramond, Golfand, Volkov, Wess, Zumino and others ? foresee in the early 1970's that they would be opening to us the gates of the superworld? The superworld will become one of the most important components of our understanding of Nature ? a component that will stay with us forever.This book is a compilation of the original papers and review articles, devoted to various aspects of supersymmetry, written by the outstanding researchers in the field, theorists whose work shaped the present day theory and continues to make a profound impact on the frontier directions of the current development. A wide range of topics is covered ? from subtle results in the superstring theory to supersymmetry-based phenomenology. Most of the articles have been prepared specifically for this volume.The first part of the book consists of the Editor's essay presenting the basic stages of Golfand's life and work, the memoirs of his widow, Mrs N Koretz-Golfand and of his student, Dr E Likhtman. Also included is the article of Prof. M Marinov ?Revealing the Path to the Superworld?, outlining the main ideas that paved the way to the discovery of supersymmetry. The historical part of the book concludes with the English translation of the Golfand-Likhtman paper on supersymmetry published in 1972 in the Tamm Memorial Volume.