New Trends in Mathematical Physics

The XV-th International Congress on Mathematical Physics took place in Rio de Janeiro, on August 5-11, 2006. I believe it was a very successful and enjoyable meeting. It is very fortunate for our community that Latin America, and especially Brazil, in decades has become the place where all ?elds of intellectual activity which are traditionally regarded as part of Mathematical Physics are developing with steady pace and remarkable quality. Another important aspect of this devel- mentis thatbesidesareaswhichalreadyhaveworldwiderecognitionandlongsta- ing tradition in Brazil such as Dynamical Systems, Statistical Mechanics, Probab- ity Theory, etc. , there is intensive growth in other directions such as String Theory and Algebraic Geometry. Brazil's major universities and research institutes such as IMPA and CBPF are successfully bringing up a new generation of researchers in our ?eld. Thus it was especially pleasant to see that among more than 500 participants of the Congress, the majority was constituted by young researchers and graduate students. Given the enormous range of subjects covered during the Congress, and the - versity of scienti?c contributions, it would be pointless to summarize the contents here-the quality is re? ected in these pages. Traditionally, besides its very intense scienti?c program, the Congress was the occasion for the award of the Henri Poincare Prizes of the IAMP, sponsored by the Daniel Iagolnitzer Foundation. The Laureates for the year 2006 were Ludwig Faddeev, David Ruelle and Edward Witten.