We begin with a few words about Salam’s contribution to the growth of String Theory in India. In the technical talk we review results in [Formula: see text] Chern–Simons plus vector matter theories in 2[Formula: see text]+[Formula: see text]1 dim in the large [Formula: see text] limit. The dressing of charged matter by Chern–Simons gauge fields leads to anyons that interpolate between fermions and bosons and lead to a duality symmetry between fermionic and bosonic theories. The S-matrix (defined in the large [Formula: see text] limit) besides exhibiting this duality, also exhibits novel properties due to the presence of anyons. The S-matrix is not analytic, like in Aharonov–Bohm scattering, and satisfies modified crossing symmetry relations.
Unitarity, crossing symmetry and duality of the S-matrix in large N Chern-Simons theories with fundamental matter