Astronaut Photography of Columbus, Ohio taken from the International Space Station (ISS)

DAMOP 2015 has drawn to a close, and I have been reflecting on what has made this conference once again so special and enjoyable to attend.

DAMOP is remarkable on many levels, but first and foremost, it has a very strong ultracold atomic physics flavour and this is no mystery considering how much the US has contributed to the development of that subject area in the last 25 years or so. Still, a quick glance over the program and the number of sessions related to this field says it all.

Nevertheless, I will be biased and tell you that my favourite talk was that of our Editor-in-Chief, Professor Paul Corkum of the Joint Attosecond Science Laboratory, University of Ottawa and National Research Council, who spoke on “Probing the relation between high harmonic from gases and solids”. I invite you all to look out for a Tutorial article based on this work and which will be published in the journal towards the end of the year.

Leaving the talks aside for a moment, I admit I was impressed by the level of enthusiasm and professionalism of the poster presenters. Whether at the start of their PhDs or working in a more senior position already, one could sense the same passion in explaining to the audience what the issues were and how one would go about solving them. I completely lost track of time as I wandered from one poster to the next and witnessed a new generation of scientists quietly emerging under my eyes.

To end this post, I would like to thank all the people, who came to the stand to say hello and/or have a discussion about the journal. I now look forward to undertaking the many projects that came out of these meetings.

I hope to see you next year at DAMOP 2016, in Providence RI!

Read more
Strong-field and attosecond physics in solids
Shambhu Ghimire et al 2014 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 47 204030

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Featured image, courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center, published in the public domain.

Categories: Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics

Tags: Astrophysics, Atomic and molecular physics, Attosecond pulses, Bose-Einstein condensates, Chemical physics, Cold matter, Computational physics, Conference, DAMOP 2015, Featured, Optics, Plasma physics, Quantum computing, Quantum information, Ultrafast phenomena