LepageFest, a two-day event honoring the career of Peter Lepage, Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences, was held Oct. 14-15 in the Physical Sciences Building. The conference primarily focused on the current status and future of heavy quark physics while highlighting the science Lepage has done throughout his career.

During that more than 50-year career, Lepage made vital contributions to particle physics, especially quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of quarks and gluons that explains the internal structure and interactions of protons, neutrons and other strongly interacting particles.

“Peter is one of the fathers of lattice QCD, and it is a very vital field today,” said Nigel Lockyer, director of the Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-based Sciences and Education (CLASSE).  (Lattice QCD is an approach to solving the quantum chromodynamics theory of quarks and gluons describing the strong interactions.)

“In addition to being one of the dominant figures in understanding how QCD describes the strong interactions and how to make sense of this theory, Peter was also one of the very early proponents for the use of effective field theories, a concept that a complicated theory usually gets significantly simpler as you go to lower energies," said Csaba Csaki, John A. Newman Professor of Physical Sciences (A&S) and a LepageFest organizer. Conference participants included numerous other collaborators and Cornell colleagues, as well as former graduate students, some of whom spoke at an open mic at the opening night banquet.

Read the full story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.