Preface

The 17th edition of the International Conference on Many Particle Spectroscopy of Atoms, Molecules, Clusters, and Surfaces (MPS) was held in Sendai, Japan, from September 4–7, 2010. It was the first time that a meeting of this series of biennial conferences was hosted in a non-European country. The conference was attended by 110 researchers (90 regular participants and 20 students) from 15 different countries around the world.

The themes that the conference covered can be divided into three broad areas: lepton impact, photon impact and heavy-particle impact. A total of 43 oral presentations – including 2 plenary talks, 29 progress reports and 12 hot topics – and 87 poster presentations were held during the course of the program. Rapid progress both in experimental and theoretical techniques has led to discussions across a broad range of currently hot topics, such as many-body dynamics and electron correlation effects in excitation processes, as well as in single and multiple ionization processes for various kinds of targets including atoms, molecules, clusters, solid state and even biological systems. A snapshot of the present status of many particle spectroscopy is given in this proceedings.

The chairs of the conference gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Morino Foundation for Molecular Science, Iwatani Naoji Foundation, Sendai Tourism and Convention Bureau, and Intelligent Cosmos Academic Foundation. They are indebted to the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, for co-hosting the conference, as well as to the international advisory board members for their extremely helpful suggestions to make the program attractive. The united effort of the local organizing committee, involving N Watanabe (Secretary), M Okunishi (Treasurer), H Fukuzawa, M Yamazaki, Y Kino, and N Kishimoto, is also gratefully acknowledged. Without the help of these institutions and individuals it would have been impossible to organize the conference. Finally, the chairs would like to express their thanks to all the participants for contributing to lively and fruitful discussions throughout the conference.

Masahiko Takahashi and Kiyoshi Ueda

International Advisory Board