Foreword and Acknowledgement

The XII International Workshop on High Energy Physics and Quantum Field Theory was held in the city of Samara, one of the biggest and oldest Russian cities on the river Volga, September 4-10, 1997. A primary goal was to provide a stimulating environment for scientific discussion on new developments in theoretical and experimental high energy physics and physical programs for future colliders. Traditionally the list of workshop attendees includes a great number of active young scientists from Russia and other countries. In this year the Workshop was attended by more than 120 invited scientists from 13 countries.

The scientific program was jointly organized by the D.V.Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics (Moscow State University, Russia) and Samara State University (Russia) with advice from the International Advisory Committee. By scheduling three parallel sessions were made to streamline the Workshop program. As a result, plenty of the original materials contained in over 110 talks were presented at the plenary and parallel sessions. The Workshop Programm is available in the end of the volume.

Every year the Workshop programme includes both traditional and new topics:

I

The latest results of the experiments at HERA, LEP/LEP2, TEVATRON.

II

Theoretical support of experiments at the operating accelerators. Precision tests of the Standard Model.

III

Physics at the future linear and muon colliders and at the hadron collider LHC:

• phenomenology of the t-quark; search for the Higgs boson; phenomenology of the scalar bosons at TeV energies; vector bosons at TeV energies, search for new particles and new interactions
  

IV

Physical ideas and theories beyond the Standard Model:

• SUSY extensions of the Standard Model; mechanisms of spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry; compositeness models of quarks, leptons, gauge and Higgs bosons; models inspired by the superstring theory; quantum groups and other ideas from modern geometry and algebra
  

V

Modern computational methods in theoretical high energy physics:

• problems of automation in calculation of Feynman diagrams; new methods of calculating (multi)loop integrals; applications of computer algebra methods and their development
  

VI

Methodological problems in teaching quantum physics in universities and higher schools.

The Organizing Committee wishes to express its gratitude to all authors, session chairpersons, scientific secretaries and sponsors for the provided support allowed to run the Workshop on the proper scientific level.

The great contribution in the organization of the QFTHEP workshops had been made by Nikita Alexeevich Sveshnikov. He died on July 29, 1997 in the time when preparation of the QFTHEP'97 Workshop was in full swing. A special plenary session at the Worshop was dedicated to Nikita Sveshnikov. His friends created a WWW-page in his memory.

We are indebted to Mrs. Valeria Keshek and Dr. Michail Iofa for their cooperation and efficient help with the preparation of the Proceedings.

V.I.Savrin, Workshop Chairman

B.B.Levtchenko, Editor