JPhysB in 2015

By Thomas Farrell on March 20, 2015

The past twelve months have been highly successful for Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, having worked with a number of world class Guest Editors to produce three Special Issues in topical areas of research. We have also published outstanding and excellent research, the highlights of which have just been made available to read for free here.

The year ahead is looking to be even more exciting for us with four special issues, new Board Members and a new type of article to be published.

The New Year is typically the time that our Editorial Board says farewell to some members and welcomes new Board Members. This year we welcome to the Editorial Board:

Henry Chapman, Center for Free-Electron Laser Science, Germany;
Anna Sanpera, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona, Spain;
Yaron Silberberg, Weizman Institute of Sciences, Israel;
Kaoru Yamanouchi, Tokyo University, Japan.

We also welcome a number of new members to the International Advisory panel:

James Shaffer, University of Oklahoma, USA
Kenji Ohmori, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Japan
Alexander Lvovsky, University of Calgary, Canada
Jian Wu, East China Normal University, China
Thomas Weinacht, State University of New York – Stony Brook, USA
Andrew Murray, University of Manchester, UK
Mikhail Frolov, Voronezh State University , Russia
Manfred Lein, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany
Tim Gay, University of Nebraska , USA
Murtadha Khakoo, California State University , USA

We are excited to have the opportunity to work with leading members in their fields and look forward to their contributions.

Roadmaps

2015 will see the publication of JPhysB’s first roadmap. Roadmaps are a new kind of article for JPhysB, collecting the visions of leading experts for the field in which they work. Examples published by our sister journals have been very successful and well appreciated in the fields they cover. One example can be seen here.

Conferences

JPhysB staff will be attending a number of conferences this year, including the DPG Spring Meeting in Heidelberg, Germany at the end of March and DAMOP in Columbus, Ohio in June. For the full list of conferences we will be attending and details of how to contact us there, see JPhys+ at conferences.

Special Issues

We will be publishing 5 special issues in 2015, collecting research on a number of varied topical research areas. These special issues will be on the following topics:

Laser filamentation, Guest Editors Ruxin Li, Howard Milchberg, André Mysyrowicz

This special issue will attempt to give an overview of the present status of this field in order to create synergies and foster future developments. It will cover: theoretical advances on filamentation, filamentation in various media, pulse self-compression and ultrafast processes in filaments, molecular alignment and rotation, filamentation tailoring, interaction between filaments and more.

Spectroscopy of highly charged ions, Guest Editors Nobuyuki Nakamura, Yuri Ralchenko, Thomas Stöhlker

Over the last couple of decades, spectroscopy of HCI has been given a strong impetus through development of both compact (e.g., electron beam ion traps) and large-scale (e.g., tokamaks, stellarators, storage rings) machines capable of efficiently producing atoms that are ionized fifty, sixty, or even ninety times. This, in turn, triggered development of new experimental and theoretical techniques to measure and analyze HCI spectra and to use this radiation for plasma diagnostics. The purpose of this special issue will be to provide an extensive account of the state of the art in this thriving area of atomic physics.

Spectroscopic analysis of transient plasmas, Guest Editors James Bailey, David Hoarty, Roberto Mancini, Hitoki Yoneda

Covering plasma conditions produced by pulsed laboratory sources including for example, short and long pulse lasers; pulsed power devices; FELs; XFELs and ion beams. The full range of plasma spectroscopy from the optical range up to high energy bremsstrahlung radiation will be covered.

Coherence control, Guest Editors Ilya Averbukh, John Hepburn, Valery Milner, David Tannor

The notions of quantum superposition, interference and coherence lie at the heart of quantum physics, and have intrigued physicists and chemists for more than a century. Quantum control exploits these phenomena using controlled coherent interactions to direct the dynamics of quantum systems. This paradigm originated in the context of controlling the paths of chemical reactions. The concepts and techniques have since developed into a wide interdisciplinary field with applications ranging from ultrafast optics and nuclear magnetic resonance to cold matter physics and quantum information processing.

Imaging the dynamic structure of matter, Guest Editors R. J. Dwayne Miller, Henry Chapman, Bradley J. Siwick, Heinrich Schwoerer

The issue will present the latest developments in ultrabright xray and electron sources and their applications to important problems across the traditional scientific disciplines. Contributions that span the full range of relevant subjects from source technologies and their application to specific problems to data analysis strategies and theory are encouraged.

2015 will see all this and more for Journal of Physics B. I look forward to sharing more in the future.

Read More:

JPhysB Highlights 2014

Special issue on ultrafast electron and molecular dynamics

Special issue on fifty years of optical tunnelling

Special issue on compact x-ray sources