Abstract
This special issue of CAMOP/Physica Scripta presents highlights from the scientific contributions presented at the European Conference on Dynamics of Molecular Systems (MOLEC XVII) held on 23–29 August 2008 at St Petersburg, Russia. This meeting was the seventeenth in a series of biannual meetings that started in 1976, when the first conference was held in Trento, Italy. Subsequent meetings were held at Brandbjerg Hojskole (Denmark), Oxford (UK), Nijmegen (The Netherlands), Jerusalem (Israel), Aussois (France), Assisi (Italy), Bernkastel-Kues (Germany), Prague (Czech Republic), Salamanca (Spain), Nyborg Strand (Denmark), Bristol (UK), Jerusalem (Israel), Istanbul (Turkey), Nunspeet (The Netherlands) and Trento (Italy). In 2008, the meeting was jointly organized by scientists from the Ioffe Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Herzen State University, St Petersburg, Moscow State University, St Petersburg Polytechnical University, and St Petersburg State University.
About 150 scientists from 21 countries visited Pushkin, a beautiful suburb of St Petersburg near the famous palace of Empress Catherine II, and discussed the state of the art and trends in the field, as well as new methods and applications, during 24 plenary lectures, 36 hot topic talks and two evening poster sessions. A special event was the presentation of the MOLEC XVII award to Professor Grabriel Balint-Kurti for his outstanding contributions to the theory of reaction dynamics and molecular photodissociation. Further information is available from the homepage of the meeting: http://www.ioffe.ru/MOLEC17/.
This special issue covers different aspects of atomic and molecular interactions, with emphasis on both experimental and theoretical studies of the dynamics of elastic, inelastic and reactive encounters between atoms, molecules, ions, clusters and surfaces. More specifically, it includes
molecular collisions in different environments; plasma, atmospheric, interstellar and combustion processes, gas–surface processes, and biologically relevant systems; ab initio calculations of molecular dynamics; photon–matter interactions: spectroscopy, photodissociation and photo-induced reactions including femtosecond dynamics; interaction between ultra-cold molecules and atoms and processes in He droplets; and steric effects and vector correlations in reactive processes and in photodissociation.
The organizers are pleased to acknowledge the support of LENTRANSGAS, Russian Foundation for Basic Research, and the Russian Academy of Sciences. We are very grateful to all members of the Local Organizing Committee, especially Alexei Podlaskin, Irina Krassovskaya, Oleg Rojdestvenski, Peter Shternin, Andrey Smolin, Irina Beletskaya, Alexei Verkhovtsev and Ekaterina Khadikova, whose hard work made the conference so successful.
I very much hope that you will enjoy reading this special issue and that many of the articles presented will catch your attention. Perhaps we will meet at MOLEC XVIII in 2010, in Coimbra, Portugal.