Announcement of the winner of the Longuet-Higgins Young Author's Prize 2013

The editors of Molecular Physics are pleased to announce the winner of the Longuet-Higgins Young Author's Prize, Dr Lukasz Walewski, for his outstanding work with Harald Forbert and Dominik Marx on ‘Interaction-induced localisation of protons in hydrogen bonds at superfluid helium temperatures’. In this paper, Walewski and coworkers describe results of imaginary-time path integral calculations of molecules and dimers containing H atoms at sub-liquid helium temperatures. A remarkable effect is reported, namely the compression of protons in hydrogen bonds to a volume in space that is comparable to – or even smaller than – that of the much heavier donor and acceptor atoms at ultralow temperatures. The editors selected this paper in recognition of the novel physics that was described and the very substantial contribution by Dr Walewski to the research and the writing of the paper.

A profile of the winner follows this Editorial.

This year we received 72 nominations across 23 different countries and the standard of entry was very high indeed; the editors drew up a long list of 15 outstanding entries [1–15] before making their final selections. The entries emphasised the wide ranging and exciting science published in Molecular Physics from spectroscopic studies of isolated molecules and clusters to the properties of complex liquids and biological systems, encompassing both experimental and theoretical approaches.

Given the particularly strong competition this year, the editors decided to award two Molecular Physics Young Author Prizes to Felix H. J. Hall and Andrew P. Jones in addition to the Longuet-Higgins Prize.

We thank the nominators and congratulate all authors on their valuable contributions to this area of science. The journal, Molecular Physics, is keen to support young emerging authors in all its scientific areas of interest.

The Longuet-Higgins Young Author Prize Winner

Łukasz Walewski, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany

Interaction-induced localisation of protons in hydrogen bonds at superfluid helium temperatures

Łukasz Walewski, Harald Forbert & Dominik Marx

Volume 111, Issues 16–17, Pages 2555–2569

Molecular Physics Young Author Prize Winners

Felix H. J. Hall, University of Basel, Switzerland

Light-assisted cold chemical reactions of barium ions with rubidium atoms

Felix H.J. Hall, Mireille Aymar, Maurice Raoult, Olivier Dulieu &

Stefan Willitsch

Volume 111, Issues 12–13, Pages 1683–1690

Andrew P. Jones, University of Edinburgh, UK

Electronically coarse-grained molecular dynamics using quantum Drude oscillators

A.P. Jones, J. Crain, F.S. Cipcigan, V.P. Sokhan, M. Modani & G.J. Martyna

Volume 111, Issues 22–23, Pages 3465–3477

For information on how to nominate a young author for next year's prize and to read H.C. Longuet-Higgins’ papers published in Molecular Physics, please visit the prize website: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/tmph_authors_prize.asp.