International Topical Conference on Plasma Physics: Colloidal Plasma Science. Sponsored by the Abdus Salam ICTP, Trieste, Italy

Abstract

The "International Topical Conference on Plasma Physics: Colloidal Plasma Science" was held at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Abdus Salam ICTP), Trieste, Italy during the period 3–7 July 2000. The conference was organized by P. K. Shukla, R. Bingham and L. Stenflo with the help of an international advisory board and a program committee that included well known scientists from all over the world. The conference enters into a series of previous biennial activities that we have held at the Abdus Salam ICTP since 1989.The purpose of this meeting was to provide an informal forum for scientists who have dealt with various aspects of colloidal and dusty plasma sciences that are relevant to space, astrophysical and laboratory plasmas. The selected topics, which were interdisciplinary, are expected to have a great deal of impact on the development of dusty plasma science which is one of the most rapidly growing areas in physics as demonstrated by the increasing number of published papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings.The response of the conference was almost overwhelming. It was attended by approximately 110 delegates from Europe, USA, Japan, and the developing countries. A large number of participants were young researchers from both the industrial and developing countries, as the organizers tried to keep a good balance in inviting senior and younger generations of dusty plasma physicists to our Trieste conference.The scientific program included four review talks (45 minutes) and fortyone invited topical lectures (30 minutes). In addition, there were about sixty poster papers in two sessions. The latter gave opportunities to younger physicists for displaying the results of their recent work and to obtain comments from the other participants. During the five days at the Abdus Salam ICTP, we focused on fundamental aspects of: (i) dust grain charging and its dynamics in a dusty sheath, (ii) waves and instabilities in weakly and strongly coupled dusty and colloidal plasmas, (iii) various nonlinear structures in strongly coupled systems (Mach cones, shocks, and vortices) (iv) formation of Coulomb crystals in space and laboratories, (v) the physics of various attractive forces, (vi) phase transitions, (vii) dust in the Earth's middle atmosphere and the generation of plasma irregularities in expanding ionospheric dust clouds, (viii) coating of particles in a rf discharge, and (ix) exotic dusty plasmas involving busting dust (from cosmic grains to terrestrial microbes). It turns out that colloidal plasma science and dusty plasma physics, which also interacts with condensed matter physics, make plasma physics a truly cross-disciplinary and very fascinating science with wide ranging applications in space and technology. Most of the contributions from the Trieste meeting appear in this Topical Issue of Physica Scripta, which will be distributed to all the participants. It is expected that the papers of the present proceedings, which systematically describe the advancement of the physics of weakly and strongly coupled dusty and colloidal plasma systems, shall be useful for understanding the many complex phenomena that are occurring in space and laboratories.The organizers are grateful to Professor M. A. Virasoro, the director of the Abdus Salam ICTP, for his generous support and warm hospitality in Trieste. The Editors want to express sincere gratitude to their colleague and co-organizer Professor R. Bingham for his constant and wholehearted support in our endeavours. We highly appreciate the excellent work of the scientific secretary Mr T. Farid, as well as of Mrs A. Lusenti. Thanks are also due to the European Commission for supporting our activity through the Research Training Network entitled "Complex Plasmas: The Science of Colloidal Plasmas and Mesospheric Charged Aerosols".Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the Abdus Salam ICTP for providing partial financial support to our conference in Trieste. Besides, the organizers cordial thanks are extended to the speakers and the attendees for their contributions which resulted in the success of the Trieste conference. Specifically, we appreciate the speakers for delivering excellent talks, supplying well prepared manuscripts for publication, and enhancing the plasma physics activity at the Abdus Salam ICTP.