ICOLS features the latest developments in the area of laser spectroscopy and related topics in atomic, molecular, and optical physics and other disciplines. The talks covered a broad range of exciting physics, such as precision tests of fundamental symmetries with atoms and molecules, atomic clocks, quantum many-body physics with ultra-cold atoms, atom interferometry, quantum information science with photons and ions, quantum optics, and ultra-fast atomic and molecular dynamics.The conference program comprised 14 sessions with 9 keynote addresses, 25 invited talks, and 3 hot topic talks. The speakers came from 15 different countries. Ever since the ICOLS conference series originated in 1973, its proceedings have been highly valued by many for capturing important developments in the field and offering the room to represent various aspects of specific research topics. The present volume contains some of the invited talks delivered at the conference.

“The production quality is very high; even the smallest symbols are easily readable, and some papers are reproduced in color. The clarity of the exposition, the wide range of topics, and the logic of the presentation make this a valuable teaching reference. This book is highly recommended for physicists and students working on atoms in intense laser fields, laser cooling and trapping and Bose-Einstein condensation.”Optics & Photonics NewsThis invaluable book presents papers written during the last 40 years by Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and his collaborators on various physical effects which can be observed on atoms interacting with electromagnetic fields. It consists of a personal selection of review papers, lectures given at schools, as well as original experimental and theoretical papers. Emphasis is placed on physical mechanisms and on general approaches (such as the dressed atom approach) having a wide range of applications. Various topics are discussed, such as atoms in intense laser fields, photon correlations, quantum jumps, radiative corrections, laser cooling and trapping, Bose-Einstein condensation. In this new edition, about 200-page of new material has been added.

This book deals with the physics of spin-polarized free electrons. Many aspects of this rapidly expanding field have been treated in review articles, but to date a self-contained monograph has not been available. In writing this book, I have tried to oppose the current trend in science that sees specialists writing primarily for like-minded specialists, and even physicists in closely related fields understanding each other less than they are inclined to admit. I have attempted to treat a modern field of physics in a style similar to that of a textbook. The presentation should be intelligible to readers at the graduate level, and while it may demand concentration, I hope it will not require decipher ing. If the reader feels that it occasionally dwells upon rather elementary topics, he should remember that this pedestrian excursion is meant to be reasonably self-contained. It was, for example, necessary to give a simple introduction to the Dirac theory in order to have a basis for the discussion of Mott scattering-one of the most important techniques in polarized electron studies.

The embryonic development of femtoscience stems from advances made in the generation of ultrashort laser pulses. Beginning with mode-locking of glass lasers in the 1960s, the development of dye lasers brought the pulse width down from picoseconds to femtoseconds. The breakthrough in solid state laser pulse generation provided the current reliable table-top laser systems capable of average power of about 1 watt, and peak power density of easily watts per square centimeter, with pulse widths in the range of four to eight femtoseconds. Pulses with peak power density reaching watts per square centimeter have been achieved in laboratory settings and, more recently, pulses of sub-femtosecond duration have been successfully generated. As concepts and methodologies have evolved over the past two decades, the realm of ultrafast science has become vast and exciting and has impacted many areas of chemistry, biology and physics, and other fields such as materials science, electrical engineering, and optical communication. In molecular science the explosive growth of this research is for fundamental reasons. In femtochemistry and femtobiology chemical bonds form and break on the femtosecond time scale, and on this scale of time we can freeze the transition states at configurations never before seen. Even for n- reactive physical changes one is observing the most elementary of molecular processes. On a time scale shorter than the vibrational and rotational periods the ensemble behaves coherently as a single-molecule trajectory.