Supercomputing, Collision Processes, and Applications

Professor Philip G. Burke, CBE, FRS formally retired on 30 September 1998. To recognise this occasion some of his colleagues, friends, and former students decided to hold a conference in his honour and to present this volume as a dedication to his enormous contribution to the theoretical atomic physics community. The conference and this volume of the invited talks reflect very closely those areas with which he has mostly been asso- ated and his influence internationally on the development of atomic physics coupled with a parallel growth in supercomputing. Phil's wide range of interests include electron-atom/molecule collisions, scattering of photons and electrons by molecules adsorbed on surfaces, collisions involving oriented and chiral molecules, and the development of non-perturbative methods for studying multiphoton processes. His devel- ment of the theory associated with such processes has enabled important advances to be made in our understanding of the associated physics, the interpretation of experimental data, has been invaluable in application to fusion processes, and the study of astrophysical plasmas (observed by both ground- and space-based telescopes). We therefore offer this volume as our token of affection and respect to Philip G. Burke, with the hope that it may also fill a gap in the literature in these important fields.

Fifty Years of Atomic and Molecular Collision Theory.- Electron-Atom Resonances.- Recent Progress in Electron-Atom Scattering.- Benchmark Studies in Electron-Inpact Excitation of Atoms.- A Model Adiabatic Potential to Study Shapes and Locations of Single Particle Resonances: The Case of Electron-Ozone Scattering.- Aspects of an AB Initio Approach to Electron Scattering by Small Molecules.- Atoms in Intense Laser Fields.- Manipulating Small Molecules with Intense Laser Fields.- Matrix Methods.- Elastic Electron Collision with Chiral and Oriented Molecules.- Positron Scattering by Atoms.- From Positron to Positronium Scattering.- Embedding and R-Matrix Methods at Surfaces.- Negative Ion Resonance of Molecules on Surfaces: From Spectroscopy to Dynamics.- Bertha - 4-Component Relativistic Molecular Quantum Mechanics.- JET Applications of Atomic Collisions.- Radiation Pressure and Element Diffusion in Stellar Interiors.- Atomic Physics of Muon-Catalyzed Fusion.