Non-Baryonic Dark Matter -- A Theoretical Perspective

I review axions, neutralinos, axinos, gravitinos and super-massive Wimpzillas as dark matter candidates.Comment: Invited review talk at COSMO-98, the Second International Workshop on Particle Physics and the Early Universe, Asilomar, USA, November 15-20, 199

R-symmetric Gauge Mediation and the MRSSM

This is an invited summary of a seminar talk given at various institutions in the United States and Canada. After a brief introduction, a review of the minimal R-symmetric supersymmetric standard model is given, and the benefits to the flavor sector are discussed. R-symmetric gauge mediation is an attempt to realize this model using metastable supersymmetry breaking techniques. Sample low energy spectra are presented and tuning is discussed. Various other phenomenological results are summarized.Comment: 14 pages, invited Brief Review, submitted to Modern Physics Letters A; v2: replaced Figure 1, updated acknowledgments, fixed typo

Aspects of Integrability in N =4 SYM

Various recently developed connections between supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories in four dimensions and two dimensional integrable systems serve as crucial ingredients in improving our understanding of the AdS/CFT correspondence. In this review, we highlight some connections between superconformal four dimensional Yang-Mills theory and various integrable systems. In particular, we focus on the role of Yangian symmetries in studying the gauge theory dual of closed string excitations. We also briefly review how the gauge theory connects to Calogero models and open quantum spin chains through the study of the gauge theory duals of D3 branes and open strings ending on them. This invited review, written for Modern Physics Letters-A, is based on a seminar given at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton.Comment: Invited brief review for Mod. Phys. Lett. A based on a talk at I.A.S, Princeto

Invited review: Epidemics on social networks

Since its first formulations almost a century ago, mathematical models for disease spreading contributed to understand, evaluate and control the epidemic processes.They promoted a dramatic change in how epidemiologists thought of the propagation of infectious diseases.In the last decade, when the traditional epidemiological models seemed to be exhausted, new types of models were developed.These new models incorporated concepts from graph theory to describe and model the underlying social structure.Many of these works merely produced a more detailed extension of the previous results, but some others triggered a completely new paradigm in the mathematical study of epidemic processes. In this review, we will introduce the basic concepts of epidemiology, epidemic modeling and networks, to finally provide a brief description of the most relevant results in the field.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figure

AdS/CFT applications to relativistic heavy ion collisions: a brief review

We review some of the recent progress in our understanding of the physics of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions due to applications of AdS/CFT correspondence.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, invited `Key Issue' mini-review for Reports on Progress in Physics; v2: minor corrections include

Exotics and all that

This invited contribution summarizes some of the more important aspects of exotics. We review theoretical expectations for exotic and nonexotic hybrid mesons, and briefly discuss the leading experimental candidate for an exotic, the pi_1(1600).Comment: 4 pages. Invited contribution to Electron-Nucleus Scattering VII, Elba, 24-28 June 200