18th European Conference on Dynamics of Molecular Systems

Abstract

This special section of Comments on Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (CAMOP) in Physica Scripta collects some of the papers that have been presented at the 18th European Conference on Dynamics of Molecular Systems MOLEC 2010 held in September 2010 in Curia, Portugal, as part of a series of biennial MOLEC conferences. This started in 1976 in Trento, Italy, and has continued, visiting 17 cities in 11 countries, namely Denmark, The Netherlands, Israel, France, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Spain, United Kingdom, Turkey and Russia.Following the MOLEC tradition, the scientific programme of the Curia meeting focused on experimental and theoretical studies of molecular interactions, collision dynamics, spectroscopy, and related fields. It included invited speakers from 22 countries, who were asked to summarize the problems reported in their presentations with the objective of revealing the current thinking of leading researchers in atomic, molecular and optical physics. It is hoped that their authoritative contributions presented in this CAMOP special section will also appeal to non-specialists through their clear and broad introductions to the field as well as references to the accessible literature.This CAMOP special section comprises ten contributions, which cover theoretical studies on the electronic structure of molecules and clusters as well as dynamics of elastic, inelastic and reactive encounters between atoms, molecules, ions, clusters and surfaces. Specifically, it includes electronic structure calculations using the traditional coupled-cluster method (Barreto et al 028111), the electron-attached equation-of-motion coupled cluster method (Hansen et al 028110), the diffusion Monte Carlo method (López-Durán et al 028107) and the path-integral Monte Carlo method (Barragán et al 028109). The contributions on molecular dynamics include on-the-fly quasi-classical trajectories on a five-atom molecule (Yu 028104), quantum reaction dynamics on triatomics (Bovino et al 028103, and Hankel et al 028102) and statistical reaction dynamics using a model based on the long-range interaction potential (McCarroll 028106). A contribution on gas–surface interactions is also included (Sahoo et al 028105) as well as first-principles ab initio calculations to explore the hydrogen–graphene interaction (Irving et al 028108). These articles reflect the recent progress made in this field and constructively build on work described in the previous three MOLEC special sections of CAMOP published in Physica Scripta.I thank, on behalf of the scientific organizing committee of MOLEC, all the authors who contributed and Physica Scripta for providing a platform for the publication of this special section dedicated to MOLEC 2010. A special thanks goes to the CAMOP Editor, Harold Linarz, for the excellent guidance in handling the editorial work. I hope that the articles catalyze the attention of the readers towards the topics covered and contribute in attracting them to attend MOLEC 2012 in Oxford, UK.