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The 32nd IEEE
International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS 2005) was held
at the Portola Plaza Hotel in Monterey, California from Monday,
20 June through Thursday, 23 June. ICOPS 2005 was held the week
following the biannual IEEE Pulsed Power Conference (PPC 2005),
which was held Tuesday, 14 June through Friday, 17 June, also at
the Portola Plaza. A minicourse held on the intervening weekend
connected the two conferences.
ICOPS received a total of 490 abstracts (another 500 were received
by PPC). The conference had about 510 attendees, with non-U.S. registrants
accounting for 30% of the total. Thirty countries were represented
at ICOPS. The number of non-U.S. participants could have been higher
if it were not for new, more time-consuming visa application procedures
for certain countries. About 23% of the registrants were students.
The overall participation in ICOPS 2005 was high, about the same
as ICOPS 2004 in Baltimore.
The technical program was excellent. The technical topics for ICOPS
2005 were grouped into seven broad technical areas, with each area
headed by a Technical Area Coordinator (TAC), who also served as
a member of the Technical Program Committee. The technical areas
were:
1. Basic Processes in Fully and Partially Ionized
Plasma
2. Microwave Generation and Microwave-Plasma Interactions
3. Charged Particle Beams and Sources
4. High Energy Density Plasmas and Their Interactions
5. Industrial, Commercial, and Medical Applications of Plasmas
6. Plasma Diagnostics
7. Pulsed Power and Other Plasma Applications
Across these technical areas, there were a total of
32 separate technical topics representative of the wide scope of
scientific endeavor embraced within this meeting. Each topic had
an individual Session Organizer (SO), responsible for organizing
the technical sessions - selecting invited talks, determining oral
and poster papers, ordering the sessions, and communicating with
the other SOs. The full session list can be viewed at www.icops2005.org
(click Technical Program). Sessions with more than 20 abstracts
included: in Area 1, Computational Plasma Physics and Basic Processes;
in Area 2, Codes and Modeling; in Area 3, Plasma, Ion, and Electron
Sources; in Area 4, Radiation Physics (the highest-represented session
with 57 abstracts) and Fusion; in Area 5, High-Pressure Plasma Processing,
Low-Pressure Plasma Processing, and Medical, Biological, and Environmental
Applications; and in Area 6, X-ray Diagnostics. The success of this
meeting is primarily a result of the work by the TACs and the SOs;
they are listed on the website. The technical program was highlighted
by seven plenary talks covering a wide range of topics, and included
the Plasma Science and Applications Committee Award presentation.
They included:
- Ed Moses (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
– The National Ignition Facility – Status and Plans
- Todd Ditmire (University of Texas) – High
Energy Density Physics with Terawatt- and Petawatt-Class Lasers
- Mike Cuneo (Sandia National Laboratories) –
Double Z-Pinch Hohlraums: Symmetric ICF Capsule Implosions and
Wire-Array Z-Pinch Source Physics
- Armelle Vardelle (University of Limoges) –
Three-Dimensional Time-Dependent Model of DC Plasma Torches
- Robert Goldston (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory)
– Advances in Magnetic Fusion Science and the ITER Project
- Jean-Louis Bol (Ion Beams Applications Inc,. Belgium)
– State-of-the-Art Electron, Proton, and X-ray Generators
for Medical and Industrial Applications
- Neville Luhmann, Jr. (University of California–Davis),
PSAC Award presentation – Millimeter Waves Imaging and Visualization
of Plasma Waves and Instabilities
A Special Issue of IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science
will be published to document ICOPS 2005, in addition to the Conference
Record - Abstracts book. The Special Issue is devoted to Invited
and Plenary talks from ICOPS 2005. Steve Gitomer of Los Alamos National
Laboratory and the Editor of TPS, is overseeing the Special Issue.
The annual Plasma Science and Applications Committee Award was presented
to Neville Luhmann, Jr. of the University of California at Davis.
Satellite meetings included the Workshop of Multi-Beam Laser Plasma
Interactions and Related Physics organized by Robert Kirkwood (LLNL),
an NRC Plasma Science Committee town hall meeting run by Mark Kushner
(Iowa State University), a MAGIC Users’ Group meeting chaired
by Lars Ludeking and David Smithe of ATK Mission Research, and a
DTRA group meeting run by Bob Commisso (NRL).
The ICOPS 2005 weekend minicourse, Physics of Z-Pinch Plasmas, was
organized by Chris Deeney of Sandia National Laboratories. The course
attendance totaled about 55 - an exceptional showing – and
was found to be invigorating by all attendees.
The ICOPS offers a Student Travel Grant Program to encourage student
participation. The Chair of the Student Travel Grant Committee (a
PSAC/EXCOM function) for 2005 was John Luginsland of NumerEx, assisted
by John Booske of the University of Wisconsin. Eleven students were
offered travel support to attend ICOPS 2005, from four different
countries.
To encourage membership in the IEEE, the ICOPS meetings offer free,
half-year memberships to the IEEE, on-site at the conference. Vernon
Price performed this customary service at the registration booth,
although for the last time
There were several activities geared toward getting people together
to interact. In addition to the welcoming reception on Sunday night
and the traditional conference banquet on Tuesday night, a concert
by Dromedary, a two-person eclectic string band, was held Monday
night and a barbeque beach party was held Wednesday night.
ICOPS 2005 benefited enormously from the generous support of a number
of organizations. Supporters for ICOPS 2005 included: the National
Nuclear Security Administration, Air Force Office of Scientific
Research, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories,
NumerEx, Sandia National Laboratories, Ktech Corp, Diversified Technologies
Inc., Titan Pulses Sciences Division, Adelphi Technology, XTech
and Prism Computational Sciences.
Sophie Chantrenne (Ktech Corp.) was the Conference Co-Chair and
shouldered the majority of organizational work.
For additional information, see the web site at www.icops2005.org
Robert Cauble may be contacted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
cauble@llnl.gov.
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